A Rose By Any Other Name
by doctorxdonna
Summary: Alba Prentice wakes up to her worst nightmare: she's been sold on the black market slave exchange to pay her mother's debts & escape is not possible. But what does the handsome Mr. Smith want with her & why does he look at her like he knows her somehow? Some non-con in prologue, probably dubcon for recreational drug use, plus other mature themes. AU, angst, suspense, drama.
1. Prologue

iAlba Prentice wakes up naked, disoriented, and terrified, but it doesn't take long for her to piece together what has happened when she takes in her surroundings. Bodies are huddled against walls, against other bodies, wherever they can find space to be, as quarters are cramped. Her head feels achy and fuzzy, and there's a funny taste in her mouth, which feels like it's been stuffed full of cotton balls soaked in petrol. She's never been to one of these places in person, but she's heard them described in the sort of stories that are not in history books, but are none the less accepted as truth. Stories about girls (and sometimes boys as well) who have disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. Usually these teenagers and young adults were the loved ones of someone who couldn't pay rent or a gambling debt, or owed money to a pimp or drug dealer. Andrea Prentice had been late with the rent again that month, and it seems they had finally decided to deal her the consequences by taking her only daughter and selling her on the black market.

A young girl holding a wicker basket full of tiny bars of orange blossom-scented soap is passing them out to the people in the room. The girl next to Alba just stares at the soap as though it were a piece of raw meat when the girl hands it to her. Alba takes a tiny bar of soap from the girl's grubby fingers, and swallows hard. Two stern looking women and one man with a gun usher them all into a haphazard line, and then file them out of the room and down a long hallway that has no windows and only one single, flickering light bulb. She can't help but wonder if she is walking to her death.

At the end of the impossibly long passage they separate the boys and girls and send them into rooms on opposite sides of the hall. Alba tightly clutches her soap like a talisman, holding it against her chest as she walks through the doorway. Inside the room it is dark and damp, but it looks mostly look a gym locker room, which feels very inappropriate given the graveness of the situation. Bottles of shampoo and conditioner sit in recessed cubbies in the tiled walls, and towels are stacked up in neat piles in the corner of the room. She doesn't understand at first, but when she stops to think about it she supposes it makes perfect sense. They don't want to put filthy, disgusting merchandise out on display, so they're having them all shower first.

Alba fiddles with knobs and dials, attempting to get the water to turn on, but nothing happens. She stands around lamely, trying not to look at the faces or eyes of the other naked women pressed in around her. Eventually, the water gushes on, seemingly of its own accord. It starts out warm, but becomes steaming hot in a matter of minutes. She thinks of her mother, her bed, and her home as she showers, going through the motions even if she isn't exactly certain why. When the water shuts off again she takes a towel and dries herself off, and then stands, pink-skinned and waiting with the rest of the girls.

Another guard, stocky and impassive, stands at the back door of the room. They are instructed to leave their towels in the bin by the guard as they exit. Alba is reluctant to lose the small measure of security the threadbare swath of fabric provides, but when she hesitates in its surrender the guard seizes it from her with great delight, leaving her naked and shivering, the reality of her situation becoming that much more apparent to her. When she doesn't move right away, the guard further adds insult to injury by placing his hands on her bare bum and shoving her out the door, into another chilly hallway. More men with guns stand watch where the freshly showered men and women are reconvening in yet another line.

"You are about to enter what we call the 'show room'. Here, potential buyers will walk around and inspect the merchandise. They might touch you, and you will let them. You will speak only if spoken to. You no longer have personal autonomy, so do not bother trying to fight. Are we clear?" a tall, close-shaven man with steely eyes instructs them.

"No!" a lone voice rings out, and the rest of them all suck in their breath. Alba gathers that this isn't the first time some of them have been through one of the slave exchanges, because some of the women and men are staring at the girl who cried out expectantly and with dread, as though they're waiting for something to happen.

"No?" the man asks, a hint of amusement in his voice. He stops in front of the girl, a skinny thing with dark hair and huge grey eyes. "No what?"

Suddenly the girl is attacking, throwing herself at him with a snarl. He reacts quickly, but not quickly enough as she attempts to hook her nails into his eyes. She draws them across his forehead instead, flaying the skin wide open. Blood begins pouring into his eyes and he curses, calling her the sorts of words you'd only expect to hear in a whorehouse or drug den. He backhands the girl, sending her flying into the wall.

A dazed look on her face, the girl slides to the floor and sits there, blood dripping from her lip where his open hand split it open. The tall, angry-looking man is staring at her now, his chest heaving up and down. He shoves his trousers down over his waist, down around his ankles and out of the way. Underneath he is naked and hard, and Alba can barely bring herself to watch as he advances on the naked and bleeding girl, his erect cock in one hand and his knife in the other. He forces her to stand against the wall with her legs spread, and he begins to rape her, holding his knife pressed against her throat the entire time. Whenever the girls cries escalate, he presses the knife against her pale flesh even harder. Alba looks away, but she can still hear the girl crying softly in protest. When the man finishes he slits the poor girl's throat and tosses her body to the floor, and now Alba is choking back the scream that has lodged itself in her own throat.

He was parading up and down the hall now, his eyes wild. "Does anyone else have any comments or complaints? Anyone? ANYONE? No? I didn't fucking think so, maggots. Remember, if you were worth shit to yourself or anyone, you wouldn't have ended up here. Any time you get to thinking that you might like to try and escape, any time you think you might be more clever or faster than us, well just stop thinking those things. Because you aren't. You aren't faster, you aren't more clever, you're just useless as tits on a warthog until a buyer says otherwise. So you go in there, you look pretty, and you keep your goddamn gobs shut unless one of those lovely rich people asks you a question. Now move your arses!"

Alba looks over her shoulder at the crumpled form on the floor, and wonders sadly whose daughter or sister or mother she might have been. All over, just like that, all because she had been afraid. And who wouldn't be? Although if she were honest, some of the other captives seemed more apathetic than terrified or anxious, which she couldn't understand at all. She supposed if she had been through here more than once herself, maybe it would've taken the fear and fight out of her as well. She hoped she would never have to find out either way.

The show room is a vast and empty space, cold, white and utilitarian. Women in bustiers and tight skirts sashay around the room, handing flutes of champagne to men dressed in business suits. Trays of finger sandwiches and other hors d'oeuvres are also being passed around by the scantily clad ladies, and the incongruity of it all makes a tiny, hysterical little laugh bubble up in her throat. One of the other girls gives her an incredulous look, as though she can't believe Alba is laughing after what has happened in the last ten minutes. She can't believe it either, actually, but she is almost unable to stop herself, so instead she crams her fingers in her mouth and bites down until the pain flares and one of the guard's is guiding her by the shoulder up onto a little ledge that goes around the perimeter of the room. This is where she and the other captives will stand on display, and for the first time she really stops and thinks about what is happening to her.

Alba's mother couldn't make the rent on time, not even with her helping out by working in the shops, and now she is being sold like livestock to pay the price. There is a very real and pressing possibility that when she does leave here, it will be to go to her death. That was a part of the stories, too. Many of the people who ended up here were destined for new lives of servitude, either in the home or the bedroom. She thought she was attractive enough that the latter was a distinct possibility, and she gave an involuntary shudder at the thought of any of these greasy, grimey men running their paws over her. Still, she'd rather that than the other alternatives. For years the police had suspected the New London Ripper of using the black market slave exchange to buy 'practice' victims. Every now and then a missing person would show up carved up like a Christmas ham, each one with more precision than the last. The victims were almost always poor and disadvantaged, exactly the type who usually ended up in the slave exchanges.

The men in suits are walking around the room now, eating and drinking and laughing with each other, as though they were at a cocktail party and not in the middle of a human trafficking nightmare. Alba makes it her personal goal to remain strong and stoic, even when hands are creeping up her thighs, pinching her nipples, cupping her arse or breasts, fingering her hair.

"Too skinny," one man remarks, crushing her body against his. "I'd break her in half!" He and his mates laugh at this, but leave her in peace otherwise. She is subjected to other indignities, and though there are moments when the tears actually do spill over her cheeks, still she remains silent.

There is one man though who is not part of the larger group, and he is staring at her like he thinks he recognizes her. She knows that cannot be though, because she is certain she would remember having met so handsome a stranger. He is tall, perhaps even a bit gangly, but the pinstriped suit he is wearing fits him like a glove, and his dark brown eyes peer out seriously from behind a pair of tortoise shell glasses. His hair, like his eyes, is brown and stands up in every which direction, which she sees is a result of him pulling his fingers through it and making it stand up in every which direction. He is anxious about something, but he overall has the air of someone who is uncomfortable and out of place, and she can relate to that.

"So why are you here?" he finally asks, stepping close enough to her that she can feel the edge of his suit jacket brush against the bare skin of her belly. His voice is soft, not at all like the brash man who'd felt the need to fondle her in front of all his mates before declaring her too skinny.

"I don't know for certain, but if I were a betting girl I'd say my Mum was probably late paying the rent. Again," she replies.

"Can you cook? Clean?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Can you do those things well, or are you the type who burns toast and might accidentally make chlorine gas while cleaning the bathroom?"

This time she does laugh. "Do I look like I grew up with a maid? I had to clean my own loo growing up, I know better than to mix bleach and ammonia. I might not have my A-levels mate, but I'm not stupid," she says, only realizing how impertinent it sounds after the words have already left her lips. She waits for his reaction in trepidation, unconsciously biting her lower lip as she does. He seems to be watching her do this, and his own lips are slightly parted. Finally, he smiles back at her and she breathes an internal sigh of relief.

"Feisty, aren't you?" he asks, raising his eyebrows at her. She swallows, but says nothing as he waves his arm and flags down one of the women with a tray of champagne, a redhead. He takes two flutes from her tray and whispers something in her ear.

"Very good, Mr. Smith," the redhead says, bowing her head at him and heading to the other side of the room, where a cluster of the armed guards are standing.

With shock, Alba realizes that the man is handing her one of the champagne flutes, indicating she should drink with him. She does, and the champagne is sweet and bubbly. It hits her empty stomach hard though, and it makes her feel woozy-giddy. When she starts to sways, he reaches out and grabs her by the elbow to steady her.

"Now then dear, do you have a name?" he whispers, his breath warm on her ear.

"Alba," she tells him, feeling her heart pounding against her chest like it's a prisoner trying to break free.

"Alba," he repeats after her, that amused gleam in his eye again. "So were you conceived in Scotland, born at the dawn, or did one of your parents just love flowers?"

"I don't know," she admits. "Mum loves flowers, but I don't know where I was conceived. She hates haggis though, so it probably wasn't Scotland. And I was born in the evening."

"Alba born in the evening, conceived in a land unknown. Well Alba, I think a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. You'll be coming home with me," he says, tracing the curve of her lips with his fingers.

She barely has a moment to react to this though, as two of the armed guards are pulling her arms behind her back and one of them is holding a bag to cover her face with. She would scream, but there's the quick, sharp pain of a needle in the crook of her elbow and then there is only the darkness./i


	2. Ground Rules

When Alba woke up, it was in a soft bed, propped up on puffy, plushy pillows. The sheets felt soft and smooth beneath her fingers, and she knew immediately that she couldn't have been dreaming because she wasn't at home (the linens on her own bed were nowhere near as posh). When she tried to open her eyes her eyelashes stuck together, as though she had been asleep for a long while. She reached up to rub the crusties from the corners of her eyes and blinked owlishly, taking in her surroundings.

The bed she was propped up in was obscenely large, a four-poster monstrosity in deep, rich wood, overflowing with an abundance of pillows. Next to the bed, a matching wooden night stand hosted a small hurricane lamp, currently the only source of light in the small room. Across from the bed was an armoire, and it was the only other piece of furniture in the room besides the bed and the night stand. The bed took up almost the entirety of the room, but in spite of this the space felt more cozy than it did cramped. She climbed carefully out of the bed, holding onto one of the posts as she did. Her legs felt watery when she put weight on them, but when she let go of the post she didn't go plummeting to the floor, so she very carefully made her way around the corner to the little alcove of the room with the single window. When she stopped to lean against the wall, she noted with mild amusement that the tiny flowers in the pattern were little blue roses. When she reached the window, after what felt like an eternity, she pushed the curtains aside with her hand and looked out on her surroundings with great interest.

Wherever she was, it was high up. A vast and unfamiliar cityscape unfurled beneath her window, and towering skyscrapers reached toward a night sky that was purpley-black and dotted with dozens and dozens of bright white stars. She couldn't help but inhale sharply, the sight was so startling and beautiful. After a while, she thought to leave the window to try the two doors on the opposite side of the room. One of the doors was locked, and only rattled in its frame when she pulled on the handle. The other door opened up into an ensuite with a mammoth and domineering claw-footed bath tub. Towels were folded on a rack above the toilet, a toothbrush and toothpaste were in a cup by the sink, and an abundance of toiletries were scattered across the counter. Weird. She picked up the bottles of cream and perfume, opened and sniffed some, set them back down. The last thing she remembered she had done before going into the show room had been to take a shower, but that felt like aeons ago. Her hair was matted against her skull, and she felt sweaty and sticky, the patina of long-sleep clinging to her body. Thinking she had nothing else to do, she decided to draw a hot bath.

She poured some essential oils from the counter into the bath water-sandalwood, vanilla, and jasmine, just a little bit of each. When the tub was full, she stepped carefully into the fragrant, steamy water and sank down slowly, letting the water come up to just below her chin. Eyes closed, she let the hot water work on loosening her stiff muscles. She tried not to think of her mother, or home, or what might have happened to her mother after she'd been taken. She assumed her sale on the slave exchange would settle her mother's debts, but she had no way of knowing for sure. The water flowed across her face, covering her mouth and nose and ears as she sank deeper into the tub. For a moment, she imagined she was drowning. When she opened her eyes again, dark brown ones were hovering above, peering back at her through tortoise shell frames.

She gasped, almost aspirating a mouthful of water in her surprise. Sitting up quickly, she self-consciously brought her hands to cover her breasts and crossed her legs at the waist. Though he had obviously seen her naked before, she felt compelled to try and preserve the very last shred of her modesty. "Do you mind? I thought I was alone, you startled me," she said breathlessly.

"Sorry, I just came to check on you. When you weren't in the bed, I had to make sure you hadn't tried to drown yourself in the bath tub."

"No. I was thinking about it, though, honestly. I've heard stories about the kind of blokes that frequent the exchanges, what kinds of weird kinks and fetishes they have. What did you bring me here for?" she asked.

He brought his hand up to trace the shell of her ear with his fingers and she shivered a little, unsure if it was the chilly air or his touch doing it to her. She was appalled at the idea of being physically attracted to her captor, but none the less, there was something about him that was charming, compelling even. He was staring at her, and again she got the feeling that he was looking at her as if he knew her. But of course that was impossible, so she tried to shrug it off. He just had a very intense gaze, one that made her skin break into gooseflesh. She supposed if she had to have been bought by anyone, she was glad it had been this man, as opposed to one of the other dozens of skeezes that had manhandled her back at the exchange.

"When you are finished bathing and dressing, you can meet me in the library. We can discuss the ground rules there, but one of those rules is that I ask the questions. Let's not forget which one is master and which one is slave," he said lightly. He got up from where he was sitting crouched on the floor, and slipped out of the bathroom. She stared after him, his words echoing in her ears.

When her skin started to wrinkle and the water started to grow cold, she pulled the rubber stop and watched the water and oil swirl away down the drain. Taking care not to slip on the slick porcelain surface, she patted herself dry and climbed out of the tub. She took her time combing her hair, gently squeezing the excess water into the basin of the sink. She slowly and carefully pulled the damp strands into a messy French braid, securing it with an elastic she'd found tucked inside one of the drawers. It was weird how he had exactly everything a woman would need to get ready. Either he was extremely diligent, very prissy, or a woman had been living there recently to have left those things behind. She had to believe there were no other women living here currently, though. It didn't seem practical, bringing home a black market slave when you had a wife or girlfriend about. Unless you were a swinger, which she supposed was entirely possible. Once you accepted the existence of the slave exchanges, other proclivities seemed less extreme and much more plausible. Something told her though that this wasn't the case.

She trimmed her nails, even put a quick coat of dark red varnish on them. She let her fingers sit in a basin full of ice cold water for a full five minutes to let the polish set, and decided maybe she'd put on some rogue and eyeliner, too. All these extra steps, all this effort to doll herself up wasn't because she found him attractive, she told herself, but was an effort to buy herself more time before having to face him again. She was frightened, no sense in pretending otherwise. In the mirror, she applied mascara, and her eyes looked wide and doeish, even to herself. Almost as an after thought, she applied perfume to her wrists and elbows, and the hollow of her neck. She took one long, final look at herself in the mirror before shutting the light off and slipping out of the bathroom. The next time she looked in a mirror, it might well be at a completely different person.

Opening the armoire, she was dismayed but not wholly surprised to find that everything in it was posh, expensive, and not in the least bit casual. She had grown up in a steady stream of second-hand jeans, hoodies and trainers, and the most casual things in the armoire were probably night gowns. Her fingers lingered over sumptuous silks, luxurious laces, and dresses that looked so intricate she figured you'd need a team of people to help you into them. It was all lost on her, and beginning to feel a bit desperate, she hastily chose a black lace chemise and threw it on over her head. This time when she tried the second door it was unlocked, and she padded quietly out into a dark hallway. He hadn't told her where the library was, just that she should meet him there. She scanned both sides of the hallway and saw only darkness and closed doors, save for one half-open door at the end of the hall, from which the quiet tinkling sounds of classical piano were coming. An irregular flickering and dancing of shadows hinted that the room beyond was lit by firelight, so Alba crept carefully towards it and pushed the door open.

Directly ahead of her sat her captor, back turned to the door and seated at a baby grand piano that was slightly to the left of a large stone fireplace. The room, which had impossibly high vaulted ceilings, was lined entirely with library shelves crammed full of books, save for the West wall, which was all glass and gave yet another breathtaking view of the city below. He even had one of the old-fashioned library ladders on sliders rigged up, so you could reach the shelves closest to the ceiling. In spite of the high ceilings and large windows, the room still felt quite warm, although she supposed it could be her nerves making her palms sweat. He was playing Beethoven now, and his fingers were flying over the keys with the ardor of a man possessed. She could only watch him play, afraid to interrupt.

When he finally finished the piece he sighed heavily, and turned to face the doorway. The sight of her leaning there seemed to catch him by surprise, and she heard his breath catch in his throat. The appraising look he was giving her now was more unnerving than the way he had looked at her when she'd been naked, and she got the distinct impression that he was undressing her with his eyes. The look passed though, and he got up from the piano to sit on the loveseat in front of the fire. He patted the space beside him, indicating she should join him there. Heart beating like a hammer in her chest, she crossed the room to take a seat next to him. He could've moved a bit to the right to give her more room, but as it was they were sitting thigh pressed against thigh and she didn't see him making any motions to rectify that situation. He was wearing a different suit, blue with rust stripes. The jacket was thrown over the back of an over-stuffed armchair along with his tie, and his sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. He was holding a half-empty highball glass in his right hand, and his eyes had the glimmer of someone who'd been slowly seeping in it all day.

"Don't suppose it'd be too cliche to tell you that you look ravishing in that," he said, the ice clinking in his glass as he gestured at her for effect.

"I guess that depends on whether you were actually planning on ravishing me or not," she said, bolder than she felt.

He cocked his eyebrows at her, and grinned in such a way that it made her guts turn cold. "I hadn't decided yet, honestly," he said, and she knew that he was not likely being facetious. "I guess that depends on how this conversation goes."

She shivered again, involuntarily, though if he had noticed he said nothing. The hand not holding his drink was resting on the back of the loveseat, though it was inching closer to her bare shoulder. "You said you wanted to discuss the rules, so let's discuss them. What am I here for, what do you expect of me?"

"Well you're all business, aren't you? What's the rush? There's all the time in the world for business, and even more time for pleasure," he slurred, resting his hand on her shoulder. That time she did jerk away from him, and she thought she saw a flash of murderous reproach in his eyes.

"Sorry," she stammered, trying to think of an excuse to keep from offending him. "Your hands are just so cold, maybe you should warm them over the fire."

"I can think of other hot things I'd rather warm them over," he replied, reaching for her.

"The rules?" she interjected, hoping to get him back on track. "The reason why I'm here?"

He sighed, drained the rest of his glass, and set it down on the floor next to him. "You are here because I'm finding myself in need of a wife."

"I'm sorry?" she asked, thinking she must have heard him wrong.

"A wife. I need a wife, or I lose access to all my money. Or my family's money, I suppose I should say. I have an inheritance, but the agreement is that I had to be married by my thirtieth birthday or I'd be cut out," he said dryly, getting up to pour himself another drink. "Would you like one?"

"Yeah...sure," she replied, knowing it was a bad idea. She needed to be in control of her faculties right now, but she was so nervous that if she didn't do something to take the edge off she was going to rocket straight out of her seat and into outer space.

He must've seen the bewildered expression on her face as he handed her the drink. "What? You thought all the men at the exchange were a bunch of deranged fetishists who want to take body shots off your kidneys?"

She couldn't help but laugh at that. If it had been an attempt to disarm her, it was kind of working. "Okay, yes, I did kind of think that. But honestly...if a wife is all you're in a need of, why not obtain one...in the usual fashion? You're a handsome man, you can't tell me you don't get attention from women."

He frowned at her. "My career is my focus. Finding a wife requires courtship. Courtship requires time. There are other things I'd rather be doing, and I don't need or want a wife to answer to."

"So you couldn't have put an ad in the paper or something, wanted: wife? I just...I guess I just don't understand why you had to go to the slave exchange route."

"Anything legal is traceable, Alba. That's why. I'm nothing if not overly cautious. This way, everything is on my terms, and that's how I like it. I'm a bit quirky, a bit fussy and a bit precise, if you hadn't noticed. I like things how I like them, and I'd like you to play the part of my fake wife. To your incentive, if you successfully help me carry the scheme off, I'll give you a percentage of the money and you'll be free to go. In the mean time...you stay here and have contact with no one from your old life. I will make sure that your mother is taken care of it, and you'll be free to do as you wish here in my home, so long as it doesn't involve contact with the outside world. When the members of the trust show up to visit, you'll act as my doting wife. Otherwise, you cook, you clean, and do…iother/i wifely things, whatever I decide they may be, and we'll have no problems. You can go wherever you like up here, except the locked room at the top of the stairs. That's my office, and I keep a lot of important and private files in there, so it's strictly off limits. You're not a prisoner though, not quite. Think of it as more of an...indentured servitude, or a temporary business arrangement."

And there it was. 'Other wifely things'. Alba had to figure it would've come into it at some point, the other reasons why he'd gone to the exchange instead of getting a Russian mail order bride like any other decent sociopathic freak. She couldn't bring herself to ask what those things might be though, not quite yet.

"So how long do you think you'll need me here?" she asked instead.

"As long as it takes to convince them that our love is genuine, and the only fertilizer our love garden needs is money," he said, his tone indicating his growing impatience with her questions.

"Oh. Right," she said lamely, taking a couple large sips of her drink. The alcohol burned its way down her throat, setting a warm fire in her belly. Maybe this was going to be okay. Maybe. And then it occurred to her… "I don't even know your name."

"Most people just call me the Doctor," he replied, his breath warm and boozy in her ear.

"Doctor who? If you're supposed to be my husband, I can't just run around calling you 'the Doctor', now can I?" she laughed.

"No, I suppose not," he said, pushing himself up from his partial slump and adjusting his glasses, which were slipping over the tip of his nose. "So call me John Smith then. Doctor John Smith."

"John Smith. Really?" she asked, and now she was the one cocking her eyebrows at him.

"No, not really. But there's absolutely no reason or need for you to know my real name, and that one will do as good as any. That's the alias I used at the slave exchange, and that's the name you'll use to address me. Which brings me to my next point...your name isn't Alba any more, at least not around other people. Just in case you end up on the missing person's list, don't want any red flags or anything."

"No, we certainly wouldn't want that," she said, completely deadpan. 'So what shall my new name be?"

He smiled at her again, a different kind of smile, one that was much more warm and genuine than the creepy and wolfish one he'd given her earlier. That was the sort of small that could thaw a heart of ice, she thought...but why was she even thinking that?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, so how about Rose?"

"Rose," she repeated. "Rose. Yeah, that's nice. I could get used to being a Rose, I think."

"Ah, except you are much more beautiful than a simple flower," he said, lifting his hand to brush her fringe out of her eyes. He let his open palm linger on the side of her face perhaps a moment longer than necessary, and she felt her heart begin to pound again.

_Please, not this, not now...I'm not ready...I can't_ she thought feverishly as he tilted his head closer to her own. Before she could really react he was pressing his lips against her own, thrusting his tongue hungrily into her mouth, crushing her against him. Startled by the sudden intrusion, she reacted by biting his lower lip, hard. He pushed away from her, wiping his fingers across his lips and seeming surprised to see that they came away wet with blood. The look that he gave her then was completely unreadable, and she was suddenly terrified.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, though he didn't seem to hear her. He was staring at her, rubbing his thumb over the place where her teeth had broken his skin.

"You sure you aren't part vampire bat? You've got quite a bite on you," he said with a chuckle. Relief flooded her then, as she knew he wasn't angry.

"I'm sorry...I'm just, everything is very overwhelming right now. I wasn't expecting all that," she said, feeling the need to explain again.

He flapped his hand dismissively at her and gave her another one of those smiles that made her insides feel all squirmy. "But he who dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose."


	3. Provocation

"But he who dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose," she repeated after him. "That's lovely. Did you think of that just now?"

He smiled at her again, more subdued, and hiccupped. He covered his mouth with his hand. "Excuse me. No, I can't take credit for that. One of the Brontë sisters...Anne, I think. Don't hold me to that, though, I'm hopelessly drunk right now."

"I hadn't noticed," she said, clearing her throat pointedly.

"Have another drink with me," he said, his head tipping so far forward that she thought he might fall face first into her cleavage.

"Um, I think you've had enough...John. Besides, I'm not thirsty," she said, trying to sound amiable.

"That wasn't a goddamn question, woman. Get up, and fix us another round of drinks. And don't skimp on the alcohol. I paid good money for that fine arse of yours, so tonight you get to be my drinking buddy. Now fucking do it," he said, his voice gone dangerously soft. Jesus, but he didn't just run hot and cold, he ran Saharan desert to Arctic tundra. She got up, though, and went for the bar, grateful for the opportunity to escape that piercing gaze for the moment.

Most of his alcohol was in crystal decanters, rather than labeled bottles. She could look at the color and give it a sniff, though, enough to tell that he had gin, vodka, whiskey, rum, tequila, port, and some violently green liquid that smelled almost as foul as it looked. She pushed that bottle far to the side of the bar, looked at what she had available to mix and garnish with, and started to fix them each a whiskey collins.

"Hey, why don't you have a little sour mix with your whiskey?" he critiqued from across the room, and his tone was so harsh and condescending, she had to quell the desire to throw the cocktail shaker at his bloody head. She picked up the decanter of whiskey and tipped it over the shaker, _1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10._ "There. An extra two and a half shots of whiskey, no skimping. Happy? Maybe you're looking to put hair on your chest, but I like mine pale and smooth and the way it is, thank you."

"I like your chest the way it is, too," he said as she handed him the cocktail.

She just sighed. "Of course you do. You're a man, and you're drunk. Boobs are like A-list celebrities in your world."

"Shut up. I'm not that simple minded, I just appreciate a well-crafted set of breasts when I see them, that's all. Like you've never looked at a man's bum before," he said, snorting and rolling his eyes through another sip of his cocktail. "Oh, wow. Damn, that is a bit strong. No matter, though...s'what I asked for."

She took a sip of her own drink and tried not to gag at how strong it was. She almost never drank hard alcohol like this, and she was already feeling slightly buzzed from that first drink. Internally, she cursed herself for accepting his offer the first time around; she had a feeling she would be paying for it later.

"So...Rose. Tell me about my future wife," he said, sucking on an ice cube. She realized she was staring at him doing this, and she had to catch herself and stop before it became too obvious.

"Like what? S'not much to tell. Mum got pregnant with me at seventeen, my dad did a runner when he found out. I never knew him. We always grew up poor, but she would give up everything just to make sure I had a little bit extra. We both worked full-time, but it just wasn't enough to keep up with the bills, and you know how corrupt the people running the council estates have become. We told them it would only be a few more days until pay day to make rent, but I guess they couldn't wait.. We've always only ever had each other...now she'll have no one," Alba said, biting her lip. She was determined not to let him see her cry, but that was proving to be more and more difficult as the night wore on.

Her admission seemed to make him pensive. He sank back into one corner of the loveseat, and swirled the ice around in his glass again. The nervous habit of a habitual alcoholic, she decided. But was that a trace of guilt she saw on his face?

"Your mother will be taken care," he repeated softly.

"Yeah? And what exactly does that mean, 'taken care of'? How do I know you're even telling the truth, and what's in it for me to keep playing along with your little game?" she asked, knowing she was pushing the boundaries, but needing to call him on what she thought were obvious holes in his plan. "What's to stop me from telling your trust fund flunkies exactly where you got me from?"

That grin again, like a cat toying with a mouse. "What's in it for you to not tell them, besides the money I'll give your mother? Well Alba, let me just put it to you like this: a dead woman can't spend anyone's money, mine or yours. Are you following me?" he asked, his smile growing wider.

She felt her guts turn to ice again. She _did _follow him, to the T she was pretty sure. But the smile he had given her while he said it…

"So there it is then," she said weakly. "The nub and thrust of it. If I comply, I'll be rewarded. And if I don't, you'll kill my mother. Great. I'm glad we're both on the same page with this now."

"Who said anything about killing your mother? I'm just saying...so long as you do your part, I'll make sure that no harm comes to your mother. You know how dangerous the council estates have become…" he said, unspoken threats implicit in his tone. "But if you don't comply...well, there's just no incentive for me to keep a watch out for Andrea, make sure she stays out of trouble. I am a businessman, after all, I have to protect my investment. In this case, that's you. I'd like to think that the generous financial windfall I'll be providing at the end of this will be incentive enough, but should it prove not to be I still have my own interests to look out for."

Her heart sank. Not only was he some kind of sociopath, but he was apparently a genius one at that, using her mother against her. Brilliant emotional manipulation, top notch. She wondered how he had known her mother's name, and how close the two of them were, but she supposed the slave exchange probably provided dossiers of some kind. Still, she knew then that she would have no choice but to do whatever he wanted, a prospect that was becoming increasingly more terrifying. If she had to lose her mother, by God at the very least she would try to protect her from the same monsters who had taken her from her home.

"Maybe we should have this ground rules talk tomorrow morning, when we're both more lucid. If I'm drunk and you're drunk, we're hardly going to remember this conversation."

"Well, luckily for you, you've got all the fucking time in the world to have it over and over and over again with me, and if that's what I want, then that is what you will fucking do!" he shouted at her. "Quit trying to goad me into doing what you want, woman, and finish your goddamn drink!"

Hurriedly, she gulped it down, feeling her body trying to reject the whiskey even as it passed her lips. She swallowed hard, and took a few deep breaths to keep herself from retching. She was feeling more than a little blurry around the edges now, and if he was about to pick a fight she was hardly going to be able to fend him off. Thing was, she didn't really drink whiskey because it tended to make her belligerent, and her mouth was already getting her into trouble when she wasn't trying to purposefully be a cheeky ass.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," she said demurely, folding her hands in her lap.

"You're goddamn right, you're sorry. Remember-I ask the questions. I give the orders. I _own_ you, it is not the other way around. And be lucky, because most of the men who frequent places like the exchange do not have the generous and tender heart that I do. I paid almost half a million pounds for you up front, and I'm prepared to pay you more than that if you can get the job done right. So you just smile and bat your eyelashes, and you tell me all about your goddamn self. Your hopes and dreams, your favorite color, the first boy you kissed, what the fuck ever. But if I ask you questions, I expect answers, not more questions, not your unsolicited advice. Got it?"

"Got it," she nodded in affirmation, and then thought to herself,_ Half a million pounds?_. He nodded too, and sank back against the loveseat. The fire had gone out of his eyes, and he just looked tired now. A dab of blood was dried at the corner of his mouth, and before she had even really thought about what she was doing, she licked her thumb and reached out to wipe it away. When she finished, she went to pull her hand back from his face, but he caught her by the wrist and stared at her, his pupils so large that his eyes almost looked black. He planted a kiss against the inside of her wrist, and she felt her knees start to tremble. He worked his way up her arm, kissed her throat and collarbone, and oh, my God, was she completely turned on right now?

"Now why are you going to go and start something you can't finish?" she panted, desperate to put the brakes on.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he whispered against her throat, letting his fingers trail down her thigh.

She knew it was probably a bad idea even as she said it, but maybe a part of her were hoping it were true, to prolong the inevitable. Besides, for some reason the whiskey thought it seemed like a perfectly appropriate thing to say to the mercurial and seemingly dangerous man she was currently sharing a loveseat with. "Well, it's hardly like you'll be capable of..performing, not when you're this intoxicated. I had a boyfriend who had that problem. Said guys can't get it up if they're too drunk, he even called it 'whiskey dick'..."

"Is that so?" the Doctor asked, that mad gleam returning to his eye.

"Ummm…" she stammered, realizing now in retrospect that what she had just said to him probably sounded an awful lot like a challenge or a come-on, especially in his intoxicated state.

"Well, my dear, I'd be more than happy to prove the both of you wrong," he growled low in his throat, pinning her against the side of the loveseat. The piece of furniture was hardly big enough to attempt much besides a grope and a snog, so she wasn't really sure where he was going now with this, but the sensations weren't altogether unpleasant so she let it ride.

Now, though he was nibbling on the tender spot just below her ear, and as she suspected, she was too intoxicated to levy much of a protest, though she wasn't sure she would've even if she could have done. If anything, the uncoordinated flailing of her limbs might've been misinterpreted as her urging him on, because he only became more frantic and persistent in his efforts, and he was sucking and nipping at her throat and shoulders so hard now that she was sure it would leave bruises.

And then, any hope she had of fending him off was lost when he pulled the cups of her chemise down and started sucking on her nipples. She let out a moan, so soft and tiny she didn't even know how he could've heard it over the sound of the crackling fire and their own drunken, labored breathing, but obviously he had heard it because he took it as an unspoken invitation. He pulled her with him off the loveseat and onto the rug in front of the fireplace, where he began tugging the chemise off her body. The thin lace material got caught and bunched up around her waist, and when he couldn't get the material to slide past her hips he just ripped the fabric in half with a frustrated grunt. Having freed her of the only garment she was wearing, he turned to his own clothing and began fumbling with the buttons of his dress shirt. She watched him from her spot on the floor, wondering if she should try to help him undress, wondering whether doing one over the other might incur his sudden and seemingly spontaneous wrath. Now she was glad she had plied herself with liquor, to dull her nerves just the slightest against whatever might come next, however pleasant or unpleasant whatever that was might prove to be.

And then she made it worse for herself yet again, by gasping when he finished taking his pants off. She wasn't so drunk that she didn't catch the pleased little look on his face when he caught her reaction to his raging erection. Whiskey dick? Apparently it wasn't even in his vocabulary, because he was beyond pissed drunk right now and still looked like he could split wood with the tool he was wielding. In the absence of any lumber, she realized he might have to settle for splitting her in half instead, and she was genuinely afraid again. He had a good couple of inches on even the biggest of the guys she had ever slept with, and she remembered how sore ithat/i particular encounter had left her.

He was teasing her now, rubbing the head of his cock against her entrance. "You're already wet, you dirty little slut. You like playing hard to get, don't you? Or maybe you just want it as bad as I do, hmm?"

Her cheeks burned with shame, but she said nothing. What could she even begin to say? He had her by the balls, figuratively speaking. She was wet, her nipples were hard, her breathing was rapid and shallow...her body was acting a traitor, responding to him even when she was willing it not to, and it certainly wasn't responding like that of someone who was either unwilling or uninterested.

"If you don't mind, I'll skip on the foreplay just this once. But it doesn't seem like you mind that much at all…" he said, using the smaller of his heads to tease her again. Finally, he lowered himself down over her and she could feel him reaching between their legs and then in one smooth motion he was thrusting up inside of her, battering against her cervix like he was taking revenge on it. "How do you like my whiskey dick now, whore?"

She supposed she had provoked him, after all. That was something she was going to have to learn to be more careful about.


	4. Resolve

When Alba woke up that morning, it felt like someone had wrung her body out like a wet washcloth and left her out to dry somewhere hot and unpleasant. Her head was pounding, her mouth was like a desert, and tasted funny yet again. She made a mental note to do everything in her power to stop from waking up in such a fashion, as it seemed she had been doing that a lot lately. Finally willing her eyes open, she could tell that it was still very early morning, as the sliver of sky she could see through the window from this vantage point on the bed was still more inky than pink with the coming dawn. Slowly, she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, gasping when she caught sight of the angry bruises decorating her thighs and arms. She was totally starkers, and the events of the evening previous came rushing back to her about the same time the whiskey made a rush to exit her body.

She stumbled inelegantly to the ensuite, shoved the door open and crashed to her knees in front of the toilet just in time. She hadn't eaten anything that she could recall in the past however many hours, all she'd had was the alcohol, and she felt like it was tearing her insides up now. The whiskey burned twice as bad coming back up as it had going down, and she had to choke back a miserable little sob. When she was rather certain that she had entirely emptied the contents of her stomach, she sank down and let her forehead come to rest on the cool tile of the wall. Sitting there, her mind started doing the messy job of assembling the puzzle pieces of last night's happenings. She was remembering enough though that it had her stomach tied up in knots.

Starting with, _"How do you like my whiskey dick now, whore?"_

That much she remembered pretty clearly. The rest of it though was still a bit hazy. Shakily, she got to her feet and stood up in front of the bathroom mirror to examine the best piece of evidence she had: her body. The bruises and bite marks were like a map that told her what route last night had taken. Twin bite marks ringed each of her areolae, and a collection of similar marks peppered her throat and shoulders. Her hips, thighs, and arms bore bruises that looked mostly finger shaped, although there was one mark on her inner thigh that looked suspiciously like a hickey. She blushed, thinking of how it had gotten there.

As it had turned out...she had liked his whiskey dick just fine, much to her own chagrin. When initially he had laid her down in front of the fire, she had figured it would be over fairly quickly. Alcohol wasn''t exactly known to be a performance enhancing substance when it came to sex,, but she also hadn't known many men capable of getting a rager like that after consuming nearly an entire handle of whiskey on their own. Actually, she hadn't known_ any_ man capable of drinking like that and still getting it up afterwards. He was some kind of beast.

When he'd made the remark about skipping out on the foreplay, she'd initially been relieved. The sooner it was over, the better, and she was uncomfortable with the idea of him lingering over any specific part of her body for too long. She had known there would be no point in struggling against him-as thin as he was, he was all solid, sinewy muscle underneath and he had a vise-like grip. Rather than fight against him, she'd clenched her muscles tightly around him, rocked her hips against his own, and dug her fingernails into the scant meat of his shoulders. She'd scratched the skin there, lightly at first, later raking her nails across it hard enough to draw blood. And again, it seemed to only encourage him. He'd pounded into her with short, swift strokes and an expert angle that had left her gasping and clutching at him. He'd had that self-satisfied smirk on his face, of course, but once he'd caught on that she wasn't entirely hating the experience, he'd stopped, withdrawn, and kneeled above her.

"What the hell?" she'd blurted, to which he had only laughed at her.

"Payback. For playing hard to get," he said, stroking his fingers lightly across her inner thighs, which had felt like torture in her hyperaroused state. That was where most of the bites had come from-he'd licked, sucked and bitten all over her body then, everywhere except the one place she was dying to be touched. He did exactly the thing she hadn't wanted him to, which was to kiss his way across her body, taking his time as though he were memorizing every plane, every hollow. He'd kissed her inner thigh, dangerously close to the palce where she actually wanted him, his breath warm and tantalizing on her bare skin. When she had groaned, he'd only kept his attention focused there, biting and sucking, maddeningly close and yet not close enough. She'd been on the verge of begging, but she was damned if she would give him the satisfaction. He'd then gone on to spend what felt like forever blowing his warm booze breath on her clit, a feeling that had been both delicious and insanity-inducing.

"Oh, you are_ soooo_ bad at this," he'd smirked, moving to straddle her hips. The tip of his cock had just barely brushed against her, his fingers had traced circles around her nipples until they were diamond hard, and she'd known right then that he was, in fact, deliberately torturing her, probably still for the 'whiskey dick' comment more than anything else. She couldn't help but feel like even intoxicated, he was trying to show off for her maybe just a bit.

"B...bad at what?" she'd managed to stammer.

He had placed his palms down on either side of her and dropped slowly down over her so that their faces were less than an inch apart. "Bad at pretending like you aren't enjoying this and you want it to be over. You've already shown me your thorns Rose, now I think it's time you let me have the flower as well," he'd practically growled at her as he'd thrusted inside.

A dozen sarcastic responses had leapt into her mind, but she'd bit them back, knowing that at that stage of the game those sorts of comments could very well be fatal. The man was unbalanced when he wasn't engaged in coitus, she couldn't imagine how he'd react to an ego blow while engaged in the act. It wasn't a theory she was particularly interested in exploring either, so she just kept her mouth shut, squeezed tight around him, rocked her hips, and sighed and moaned appropriately. She'd told herself it was for his benefit, but she hadn't actually been acting too hard. Still, when her orgasm came it came as a surprise-nearing his own finish, he had picked up his pace, and whether it was the increased friction, the angle, or what, she had gone tumbling over the edge after him, biting her tongue in ecstasy and shame. He had collapsed against her chest, breathing in harsh, shallow gasps. She'd hoped he'd been so caught up in his own climax that he hadn't noticed hers, but no such luck. When he had lifted his head off her chest to look at her, he'd had the Cheshire cat grin on again.

He hadn't lingered, instead had pulled out of and off of her. He'd walked, actually more like _sauntered_, over to the doorway and had turned back to look at her. His glasses were askew, and he had used just a finger to straighten them before giving her another one of those smiles that were less creepy and more inviting.

"I have work at seven in the morning. I'll take a full English at six tomorrow, make enough for two if you'd like. _Bonsoir, mon petit rosé._"

It had taken what seemed like monumental effort to peel herself up off the floor, but she had, and she had somehow also put out the fire, deposited his clothes in the laundry room (which she'd discovered was off of the humungous kitchen), and then collapsed back into her own bed, with no regard whatsoever for the time. It was some miracle of God that had roused her now-the antique alarm clock on the table, if it was accurate, said it was still thirty til six in the morning. She shuffled out of the ensuite, threw on another night gown, and make her way to the kitchen.

She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when she opened his fridge and found it almost completely empty, save for what looked like dozens of jars of condiments of questionable edibility and a couple Tupperware containers that had graduated to science experiment status. The thought of a full English breakfast had sent her stomach turning, and it looked like she was saved from it after all, at least for that day. She supposed he couldn't hold the empty fridge against her, but she was still mildly nervous all the same. She did find butter and a loaf of bread on the counter, and one sad little lemon in the fridge, next to a jar of orange marmalade that didn't expire until the following year.

"Right. Toast and tea it is," she mumbled blearily to herself, opening his pantry to look for the tea. He had to at least have tea, right? She fished around, pulled out bags of rice and cans of beans, and finally found a few tins of Earl Grey stashed behind the sugar and flour. She just hoped to Christ the man had a sodding kettle in his giant, restaurant kitchen.

She was relieved to find that he indeed had several kettles, including a fancy electric one that plugged in, and had a temperature gauge for all the different types of tea. She eyed the thing suspiciously before pushing it to the back of the cabinet and grabbing the kettle that looked most like the one her mum used at home.

When he finally stumbled into the kitchen, she was sitting at the table, staring down at the city as her tea grew cold. "Turns out you had nothing in, so no full English. Sorry. There's tea, and toast though, if you'd like."

He grunted something unintelligible in response to her, and she just sighed, taking a sip of her tea. He joined her at the table a few minutes later with a steaming mug, but no toast. She had nothing to say to him, wouldn't know where to even begin, so she just stared into her tea instead until she felt her skin crawling. When she looked up he was staring at her, aghast.

"Did I do…?" he asked, reaching out to touch her bruised shoulders. She jerked back before he even had a chance, wincing in anticipation. "Oh. I guess that's my answer then…"

She stared back at him for a moment, but finally spoke softly. "You've had your breakfast, Doctor. If you don't mind...I'd like to be excused to take a bath. Please."

He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, and held his head in his hands. "What exactly happened last night? I remember having a drink with you in the library, and talking, but other than that…"

"Seriously? You don't remember at all?" she asked, incredulous.

"No. No I don't. I was drunk," he said, narrowing his eyes at her as though she were the one who had done something wrong.

"Oh, well that's just brilliant. You sure were lucid enough when you were raping me last night!" she cried hoarsely, the tears that had been threatening to spill over finally pricking hotly at the corners of her eyes.

His mouth, which was already a bit thin to begin with, pressed itself into a razorline. He got up, set his mug in the sink, and walked to the door. On his way out, he muttered something at her that might have been an apology, but might have been wishful thinking on her part.

As she watched him go, she poured herself a fresh mug of tea. When she heard what she assumed was the front door slam shut, she allowed herself to completely lose it and break down.

_A sex fiend would've been easier. At least that would've been straightforward_…, she thought to herself. She couldn't even begin to wrap her mind around the Doctor, whether or not he wanted to fuck her, fight her, save her, kill her or wed her. She didn't know that she even believed half the things he'd told her, about taking care of her mother and letting her go free with payment. She had been raised being told that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

With a calming resolve, she realized that she didn't intend to find out. She took the sharpest kitchen knife she could find from the block, and took it with her back to the bedroom.

She had a bath to take.


	5. The Language of Flowers

Alba paced the same spot in her bedroom for so long, clutching the kitchen knife, she was surprised that she didn't wear herself straight through to the next floor. On some level she recognized that she wasn't behaving rationally, but there seemed to be little she could do about it. When her brain tried the messy business of processing everything that had happened to her it just made her head spin. Half of what was so distressing to her was that she had no concept of time or its passage, aside from waking up here for the first time, and then again this morning. She didn't know long she'd been out between the slave exchange and here, and she had no idea how far from home she was. Looking down on the city she had been clearly able to see that it wasn't New London, but having never left the city of her birth before now she had no idea where else she could possibly be.

And then there was the Doctor, and that was perhaps the biggest problem of all. Not like she should have been shocked that a man who bought and traded in human slaves was reluctant to tell her his real name, but it was obvious to her that he was someone of wealth and probably stature or importance. Which of course again lead her to wondering why a good looking man who came from money hadn't been able to acquire a wife under his own steam? It just didn't make sense, not unless there was something seriously wrong with him. Which she wagered there had to be, if last night's Jekyll and Hyde routine and his seeming amnesia concerning it this morning was any indicator. Maybe the bit about needing a wife had been a lie too, although to what end she couldn't possibly imagine.

Or maybe he really was just so socially inept and awkward that it actually was easier for him to buy a mate illegally than try to find one the normal way? The man obviously wasn't a virgin, that much was obvious to her after last night. At some point in his life, he had dated or at least had some kind of physical relationship with a woman. At least she had to believe that. She didn't think even a genius was capable of learning to do some of those things just from a book without having had any real world practice.

It was a shame the...encounter, as she was coming to think of it, had occurred under the circumstances that it had. Any other time and place, the Doctor could have been a brilliant hook up, maybe more if he weren't so bipolar or whatever it was that made him manic and cheerful one moment and dark and brooding the next. It was obvious he was capable of being a skilled and generous lover, if he wanted to be, but she thought he could probably also strangle someone while humming a jaunty little tune. Maybe he was just like that when he was drinking. She could hope that, anyway, though experience had taught her that alcohol often served as a lens of truth, showing a real snapshot of a person without their inhibitions, and the snapshot she had seen of the Doctor last night had been mildly terrifying, to say the least.

So he was probably just mad. Well, more like definitely and less like probably. He was mad. That wasn't up on debate. Just how mad exactly though, she wasn't yet sure. She was still trying to cope with the attraction she felt to him, when he should be all accounts be repellant for her. Her mum had always said she had rubbish taste in men, but none of them had been bonafide nutters or sociopaths, either. Come to think of it, none of them had really been men,, more like boys than anything. The Doctor was older-she assumed twenty-nine, based on last night's conversation, though she supposed he could be younger. Either way...he was just different, although that probably could qualify as understatement of the century.

The thing that was really nagging at her though was her mother-at this point, she could care less about herself. She just wondered if her mum was okay, and if the Doctor actually intended to make good on his promise to make sure she was looked after, or if those had just been empty words to grease the wheels of acquiescence on her part. I he were being honest though, they were talking about the kind of money that could get herself and her mum out of the council estate and potentially keep them living comfortably without the need to work for quite a while.

She stopped pacing, and slid the knife under her mattress. If she decided she needed it later, it would be there, whether for him...or herself, if God forbid it came to that. For now though, she decided she needed to gather more intelligence, so she went to explore the house, in search of anything at all that might give her a clue to where and when she was. Last night she had been too wrought and incoherent to do much more besides stumble-shuffle her way to the laundry, and then to her room. It had been dark, and she hadn't really taken the time then in her drunken fog to observe her surroundings. Now, daylight was breaking and the place would be better lit. Based on how high up they were and how posh the accommodations had been, she already figured they must be in some sort of penthouse suite. Where in the hell the penthouse was located happened to be the more pressing question. She went to the library, knowing the one whole wall was made entirely of glass and would probably afford the best view.

Looking down on the city in daylight, it was a bit less remarkable than it had seemed in the night. More curiously, she didn't recognize any of the local landmarks. Wherever he'd taken her, it was surprisingly generic looking, at least from her vantage point. It was too high up to read the tiny signs on the buildings and billboards below to look for any identifying names or other clues . Whatever answers she was looking for, she decided she wasn't likely to find them staring out the window. She turned around to regard the entirety of his library, and realized with a sinking feeling that it was almost too big. Still, she decided to browse his books, thinking it might give her a hint as to his profession, or perhaps what sort of person he really was.

The books were of little help. He had volumes on such a wide variety of subjects, it wasn't clear to her that he preferred one over any other. She found a lot of medical textbooks and references-Gray's Anatomy, the ICD, and curiously enough, a copy of the DSM-IV, which was old, out of date and American, to boot. She thought he might be a medical doctor, but then he also had several different versions of the Bible, copies of the Qu'ran in English and what she assumed was Arabic, and dozens of books on the different Eastern philosophies and religions of old Earth. All these were sandwiched in between books on every topic, from astronomy to zoology. So he was really, really well-read, or he at least liked to give people that impression. She gathered though that he was the private type, so likely this library was only for his benefit. Still, she hadn't yet climbed up on the old rolling ladder and looked at the top shelves. She would assume the books he used the least would be up there, but maybe she would find something of interest.

The most interesting thing she found was a large and intricate spider's web, the occupant of which was disturbingly absent, or at least out of sight. Nervously, she continued poking around, mindful of any creepy crawlies that might be hiding out. Most of the books on the top shelves seemed to be old, outdated encyclopedias, or educational volumes with such exciting titles as iA History of Danish Cheesemaking/i and iNotes on the Domestication of Exotic Birds/i.

Right. So that was a strike out. She was about to start climbing her way carefully back down the ladder when a book with a bright red spine caught her eye. It was a couple rows away, at the very end of the topmost shelf closest to the window. She carefully scooted the ladder close enough that she could reach out to grab the book. Her fingers brushed the spine, the ladder tipped dangerously, and she snatched the book and leaned back, regaining her balance with a whooshing sigh of relief. She briefly examined the book, noticing with amusement the title: _Sextrology: Seeing Stars in the Bedroom_. The author was apparently a woman named Melody Pond, who had big hair and an even bigger grin in the photograph of her on the back jacket of the book. Alba flipped back to the front, looking for the contents. The book fell open on its own to a page that had evidently been read many times.

Well, and that was almost too strange a coincidence. The legend at the top of the page read "The Taurus Woman", and Alba's birthday was the first of May. She read on to see what cosmic wisdoms Melody Pond had in store for her.

_It should come as no surprise that Taurus, ruled by Venus, would exhibit many of the qualities ascribed to the Goddess of Love herself. The Taurus woman is vibrant, passionate, fecund, and fiercely loyal, provided you know how to stroke her ego and other integral parts of her anatomy (ahem!). She is a tactile creature who delights in indulging all of her senses, both in her everyday life and in the bedroom. Silky sheets, rose petals, soft music, and a good-smelling lover all pave the road to a successful sexual encounter. Those lucky enough to bed a Taurean woman will find her an adaptable and generous partner, just as open to tender lovemaking as frantic fucking._

"Hello?" an unfamiliar male voice called out. Alba shut the book guiltily and jammed it back onto the shelf in front of her, hurriedly scrambling back down the ladder. Her feet hit the floor at the same time the owner of the mysterious voice entered the room, carrying an elaborate floral arrangement. Andrea Prentice had loved flowers, and Alba couldn't help but notice that this wasn't just any floral arrangement, but a rather strategically arranged one, featuring pale pinky-lavender raspberry blossoms, deep pink dog roses, and a gorgeous mix of tight-budded Amnesia roses and a more open variety known as the Ocean Song rose, both in different, subtle shades of purple. A couple large stargazer lilies were peppered throughout the arrangement, so deep a shade of pink they almost looked red. Her mind was turning over, trying to remember everything her mother had taught her about the language of flowers.

"Hi," she finally managed to croak. The man set the giant bouquet down on top of the piano, and she finally got a good look at him. He was handsome, with dark brown hair, blue eyes and a strong jaw. It was only when he cleared his throat pointedly that she realized she'd been staring at him, though he hadn't exactly taken his eyes off of her either, not since putting the bouquet down.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. The Doctor sent me, to give these to you, and to drop off some groceries. I already loaded up what I had in the kitchen, I was just looking for you," he said, flashing her a wide, toothy grin.

"Right," she replied, as if all this made perfect sense. If the Doctor had sent this man over here unattended, she had to believe he had some knowledge of the complexities of their arrangement. Or did the Doctor really expect her not to say anything to him? Maybe he did. She realized she was afraid, thinking back to the quiet menace in his voice when he implied that she should do what he wanted if she wanted her mother kept safe.

"I'm Jack, Jack Harkness, but forsaking formality I really prefer just to be called Jack. The Doctor sent me to you, in case you need anything. Here," he said, rummaging around in the pockets of his coat, which was so long it was sweeping the carpet. He pulled out an old mobile phone, and handed it to her. "It'll only dial one number, and that's me, but if you need anything at all I'm around."

"What if I need a friend? And a lobotomy?" she asked in a fit of honesty.

He just laughed, and shook his head. "The former I can handle. The latter...you're on your own kiddo, unless the Doc has_ Lobotomies for Dummies_ on one of these shelves."

"Oh, I think I did see it actually, right next to_ At-Home Foreskin Removal and You_," she said with a completely straight face.

"Seriously?" he asked her.

"Yeah...sure," she said, unable to further suppress her giggles. For whatever reason, she found herself immediately liking Jack. Something about him set her at ease.

"Yeah, okay. Quit pullin' my leg," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Would you rather I pull on something else instead?" she asked, all innocence.

"You know...I'm just going to refrain from answering that one. This whole living thing has been working out alright for me, I'd like it to stay that way."

"Hmm. You wouldn't possibly be inferring that the Doctor might be a bit of an overly possessive and jealous psychopath, would you?" she asked, tilting one of the roses towards her nose so she could sniff it.

"No, no I definitely wouldn't be inferring that. At all," Jack said, scratching the back of his neck. "Where would you even get an idea like that?"

She just stared at him. "Either you're blind or polite, but I'm sure you've seen the bruises. Connect the dots, Mr. Harkness. Or, I'm sorry...Jack."

Jack was nonplussed. "The Doctor has his proclivities. I always fatasiz...er, I always _assumed_ that he might be into BDSM or something. He just seemed like the type."

Realization dawned on her. "You fancy him, don't you? But I guess he probably doesn't know it."

Jack's only confirmation was the furious blush creeping into his cheeks.

"He's mad," she stated.

"Yes, and a bit magnificent, too. You just gotta get to know him. The Doc...he's had a rough go of it. But I'll let him tell you about all that in his own time. If you don't need help with anything at the moment, I actually did have something I needed to get back to."

"I suppose not," she said, and he tipped a salute at her before turning back to the door.

"Have a good one, in that case. And if you need me, just press one and send. Or shoot me a text message. Whichever you like, Rose," he said.

She caught the use of her new alias. "Did the Doc..did John tell you where he and I met?" she asked, unable to hold back her curiosity to see what the other man's reaction would be.

"Yes" he replied, but said nothing else. When she didn't respond, he just shrugged, gave her another smile, and kept on walking. She stared after him, not quite sure what to make of Jack Harkness or the vague answer he'd just given her.

Turning back to the floral arrangement, she gave one of the Ocean Song roses a deep sniff. It really was a gorgeous arrangement, but it only left her feeling more conflicted. In the language of flowers, roses symbolized beauty, but purple roses specifically were a symbol of enchantment. Lilies were also a symbol of beauty, and these stargazer lilies were flawless, some of the most gorgeous she'd ever seen. The raspberry blossoms were a sign of remorse, of course. All of those things together sort of made sense, she supposed. He was telling her that he thought she was beautiful and enchanting, and that he was sorry for what had happened. But then there were the dog roses, symbolizing both pleasure and pain. All the different types of roses had to be intentional-he could have used other blooms to express the same sentiment, but obviously had chosen not to. She wasn't exactly sure what to make of it, especially the dog roses.

For Alba, the mystery of the Doctor was only deepening.


	6. A Family Affair

After Jack left, Alba shimmied back up the ladder to retrieve the book from the place she had hastily jammed it. She climbed back down the ladder and debated lounging on the loveseat with it, but thought better and took it back to her room. She shoved it underneath the mattress, next to the kitchen knife. She took the knife out, wrapped it up in a spare pillowcase she found at the bottom of the armoire, and wedged it in between the mattress and the headboard. She was getting quite the collection going, but she wasn't quite done yet. She walked back out into the hall and walked the opposite direction of the library, to the other end of the hallway where she hadn't yet explored.

The door there at the end of the hall had a stained glass window with no particular design, just different panes in varying shades of blue and green. She turned the knob, and was almost surprised when it yielded to her. The door swung open, and she stepped into an indoor greenhouse that looked to be about as big in size as the library. In raised beds by the windows, fragrant kitchen herbs dotted a dozen different clay pots. In addition to the herbal makings of an old Simon and Garfunkel song, she spotted savory, marjoram, basil, lavender, chervil, and something that might have been lemon balm or lemon basil.. She moved around the room, noting with amusement that in one corner he was definitely growing something that looked suspiciously like marijuana. The closer she got to it, the more surprised she was that she hadn't smelled it right when she walked in. Perhaps the greenhouse were actually a bit bigger than the library.

_Seriously green house_..., she thought to herself, guiltily plucking one of the larger buds off the plant. If anything, it might help quell the ever-present feeling of nausea she'd developed since finding herself naked in the slave exchange. She had no pockets, so she just held the fuzzy little bud clutched in her fist as she continued to walk around. His greenhouse seemed to be as confused as he was-next to completely innocuous and garden variety flowers and plants, he was also growing belladonna, poppies, and digitalis. She made a second pass-by the marijuana and grabbed a few more buds, sticking them to the one already clutched in her damp palm.

She deposited all but one of her littles buddies into a tiny Tupperware from the kitchen, and hid it inside the toilet tank of her bathroom before heading back to the kitchen. There, she was relieved to find that Jack had completely stocked out both the fridge and pantry, and stomach grumbling, she started to use a vegetable peeler to poke a hole into the side of an apple. Using her fingers, she crumbled the weed into her makeshift pipe before she realized that she didn't have a lighter. A frustrated search through the junk drawer yielded several books of matches, but no lighter. Determined, she plowed on.

Puffing on her apple pipe, she stared into the fridge, formulating culinary ideas. Her mother had been pretty awful at cooking, though Andrea would always insist otherwise. Alba had taken up doing most of the cooking, and had even become pretty good at it. Focusing on a new recipe, or creating one from scratch, she was happy to be in the kitchen puttering away. Cooking was a grounding activity for her, and she found a certain kind of peace and clarity in the methodical, repetitious work of chopping vegetables, peeling garlic and the like. Reaching into the fridge, she pulled out a small, whole chicken and a bag of fresh lemons. Stroking her chin, she decided she needed to make a second visit to the greenhouse, for some of the less illicit herbs he had growing there.

He wanted her to cook? Fine. She would get stoned off his stash and create something so delicious, it'd knock his goddamn socks off and start a culinary revolution. Well, she would just settle for something that tasted good at this point, honestly.. She could only hope that the way to a madman's heart was, like any other man, also through his stomach. And once she had crept into his heart, maybe she would have a shot at picking his brain.

She hit the power button to a tiny CD player/radio that was hanging underneath one of the cabinets, and laughed when the familiar melody of "Scarborough Fair" came pouring out at her. After retrieving the necessary herbs from the greenhouse, she dove immediately into cooking. Between the clatter of pots and pans and the music, she didn't hear the shrill ring of the mobile phone Jack had left for her.

Oblivious, she sang along with the words, feeling an absurd sense of giddy purpose, "...parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme!"

When the Doctor came home, he was less than ecstatic to find the kitchen sink littered with used matches, the counter littered with dirty dishes, and a half-naked Alba singing into the spoon she was using to stir her risotto with. Earlier in the cooking process she had managed to douse herself with water from the sink, and she had just removed the night gown she'd been wearing, leaving it draped over the back of a chair. She'd meant to go get another one, honestly, but then the timer started going off, she'd misplaced her apple, and one thing had led to another.

"Are you stoned?" he asked her with disbelief.

"No! Well, maybe. Probably, definitely, yes," she said, pressing her hand to her mouth and giggling. The Doctor was staring at her now, which might have been just as much about the nudity as her bizarre behavior. It was hard telling, and the look he was giving her was undecipherable. The pot had instilled a sense of bravado in her that had not been there previously.

"So I guess you found the greenhouse then."

"Yes, I guess you could say I found the 'greenhouse', alright," she said, making air quotes around the word 'greenhouse'. She was only slightly miffed that he didn't seem happier to see her naked and cooking in the kitchen. He was probably mad about his stash.

"Okay. This is bad," he said, pulling his fingers through his hair. "At the moment I don't know how bad, but we're certainly three buses, a long walk, eight quid and a taxi from good."

"If it's any consolation, I am sorry. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. I've been so nauseous, and I knew I had to eat. I didn't know though that you apparently took botany lessons from Tommy Chong...I haven't been this high since...well, ever, actually,' she said, bursting into a fresh peal of laughter. The Doctor took her firmly by the arms, avoiding the places where she was bitten and bruised.

"Alba..Rose. Get it together. I know this is short notice, and believe me..you have no idea how unhappy I am about it. But two of the board members who sit on my trust committee are dropping by tonight for dinner, and I need you to be at least semi-coherent. They'll be here in less an hour."

"Less than an hour? Fuck dude, I hope you have stock in Febreeze…" she said, her sentence trailing off into titters. She broke free of his gasp, and opened the oven to check on the chicken. "Well, perfect timing on one point. The Simon and Garfunkel chicken will be done in about an hour, and maybe it's delicious aroma will cover up the fact that my good friend MJ was here to visit. I think I can pull it together long enough to play the role of doting wife, at least for an evening."

"Wait...what? Simon and Garfunkel chicken?" he asked, confused.

"Yeah, you know. I stuffed the bird with some lemon wedges, and then I seasoned it with salt and pepper, and parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme," she said, sing-songing the last bit. "Oh, and butter. And white wine. And I made four cheese risotto. So at least dinner is taken care of. Oh! And I made cake. Chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream."

"Right. Right...that's good," he said, pulling at his face in obvious frustration. "Well, go take a bath or something. And for Christ's sake, there's Visine floating around your room somewhere, find it and drop your eyes, please. I've brought you a new dress, something with long sleeves. I'll leave it for you to change into when you get finished bathing."

"Kay," she agreed. She turned to leave the kitchen, but before she did she pressed herself into his arms and wrapped her own arms around his neck. The gesture seemed to take him by surprise, and he went stiff before he finally allowed himself to relax a little and let his hands come to rest on her waist. She hugged him, and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. She felt him twitch through his trousers against her naked belly, and she smiled a little to herself.

If this was a cat and mouse game, then two could definitely play it.

"By the way...thanks for the lovely flowers," she said nonchalantly, skipping out of the kitchen, but not before she caught the look on his face. He was looking at her like she was a unicorn. He was impressed, but trying not to let on.

Alba tittered behind her hand all the way to her ensuite.

By the time she had emerged from her room, freshly bathed, dressed in a long-sleeved black dress, and significantly subdued, the Doctor had cleaned up most of the mess in the kitchen, lit a couple of scented candles, and was setting the table.

"I would've cleaned up," she told him, and he almost dropped the wine glass he'd been setting down.

"You scared me, I didn't hear you creep up there," he said.

"Hmm. I'm like a cat. Or a ninja. Maybe a ninja cat?" she posited.

"Alba…" he warned.

"Relax. Most of the...side effects have worn off now. Which is a shame. I forgot how horny smoking makes me," she said, and that time he did drop the wine glass he was holding, right as the doorbell rang. He shot her a look of consternation, and made to leave the kitchen.

"Think you can sweep that up?" he called to her over his shoulder.

"Of course, Sweetie!" she practically gushed back at him. She was prepared to lay it on thick, alright. Her's may have been an absurd brand of revenge, but seeing her get to him like this was much more rewarding than other methods.

Pain and pleasure, after all.

She picked up the broom, swept up the shards of the broken wine glass, and deposited the whole mess into the trash. She was standing on her tippy-toes, reaching into the cabinet to grab another wine glass, when the Doctor returned to the kitchen with two people, a young man with short blond hair who looked vaguely familiar for some reason, and an ambiguously older brunette woman, who was eying Alba contemptuously.

"Rose, my dear, this is my brother Harry and his lovely wife, Veranika," he said, his tone indicating that he thought otherwise of the older woman.

"Charmed, I'm sure," Veranika replied, making no efforts to hide her disdain. "You can call me Rani, if you like. I never felt like much of a Veranika myself."

"Pleased to meet you, Veranika," Alba replied, taking an immediate dislike to the other woman. She didn't know why, but something about her made Alba feel nervous and on edge, and she wasn't a big fan of the wolfish look the brother was giving her, either. She got the distinct impression that the two of them would eat her alive, if given the opportunity. She shuddered. Who'd have thought the Doctor would ever be the least creepy person in a room?

"We brought wine," Harry said, handing the bottle to his brother. The kitchen timer went off, and Alba took the oven mitts and retrieved the chicken. The skin looked perfectly browned, and she sighed with relief.

"Hmm. Looks delicious, dear," the Doctor said, coming up behind her. He planted a kiss in the crook of her neck, and she shivered as his lips brushed against her ear to whisper, "Just follow my lead and let me do the talking."

He pulled back and gave her a meaningful look, and she nodded her understanding at him. He squeezed her hand one, briefly, and then let it go so he could look for the corkscrew.

"So the kitchen, eh? What, didn't feel like getting the fine china out for us, brother?" Harry teased.

"Well, it's not as though you exactly gave me any notice. You announced it to me as we were leaving work that you two would be coming over to dinner tonight," the Doctor replied, not bothering to mask his irritation with his sibling.

"Well of course. You can't keep the lovely Rose all locked up and to yourself. You returned from New London a week ago and no one has laid eyes on her, besides Harkness, and he hardly counts," Harry snorted.

"Oh, don't be mad at John. That was all me. I was tired, from all the traveling and running around. I asked for just a few days to recuperate before we entertained any guests. You'll have to forgive me," she said with a smile, trying to figure out why the other man seemed so familiar to her. She just couldn't place him…

"John?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows. He turned to look at his brother and smirked. "Is that what you've been calling yourself these days, you scamp?"

"Get bent, Harry," the Doctor replied mildly. "Wine?"

"Why the hell do you think we brought it with us?" Rani asked taking the bottle from his hands and topping off her glass. 'We needed something to make an evening with you bearable."

Ouch. It was obvious there was no love lost between this bunch, which just made the whole impromptu dinner engagement seem all the more inexplicable. Alba felt a strange protectiveness though for the Doctor, and she reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. He turned to look at her, and she was rewarded with one of those smiles that made her believe for just a moment that he was telling her the truth.

"I don't like them," she whispered in his ear, waiting until Harry had gone to fiddle with the music and Rani had excused herself to the loo.

"The feeling is entirely mutual, believe me. But you're doing fine, so just keep it up," he encouraged, letting his hand rest on the small of her back as he pulled her chair out for her.

He waited until Harry and Rani joined them at the table, and then began to carve the chicken. Alba admittedly tuned out a little, ignoring the quibbling that passed between the other three. She was still looking at Harry, wondering where she knew him from. It was one of those things where she was sure she'd feel stupid, once the answer became apparent, but it wasn't as though she could exactly ask him what he did for a living. Dinner finished without too much fanfare, cake and coffee was served, and then they retreated to the library for drinks. Alba sat next to her pretend husband-to-be on the loveseat and looked down at the floor, trying not to dwell on the act that had taken place there less than twenty-four hours previously. She had noticed at dinner that he'd only had one glass of wine, and there was barely an inch of scotch in the glass he was holding now. She realized she was relieved by this.

"Lovely arrangement there. But remorse? What could you have done that you needed to apologize for already? Rani asked the Doctor, a smirk on her face.

He started to answer, but Alba interjected sweetly. "Ah, but did you see the dog roses in there, too? Not just remorse, but pleasure and pain. He sent me flowers to apologize for causing me to lose out on sleep last night," she said, winking at him as she did.

Alba wished she could've captured the look on Rani's face when she said this. When Harry started guffawing and clapping his hand against his knee, the arrogant brunette swatted at him angrily and got up, muttering something about the lateness of the hour.

"I'll see you out," the Doctor said, leaping to his feet and walking with his brother and sister-in-law to the doorway of the library. Alba stayed behind, sipping her lemon water. The three of them formed a cluster out in the hallway, and though she could hear what sounded like angry whispering, the words were indistinct under the noise of the crackling fire. Finally, the trio moved out of the hallway, and a few short moments later she heard a door slam. She realized she still wasn't even sure where the front door of this place was-she had gotten distracted the last time she'd tried to explore. She also had almost no idea what they had all been talking about for the last few hours, seeing as she had been in her head for most of it. She heard the Doctor's returning footfalls, and she set her empty glass down on the table in anticipation.

"Alba, you were just brilliant!" he exclaimed giddily, grabbing her hands and pulling her up from the loveseat.

"Oh, it was nothing. Besides, we were united in our cause to piss off Rani, I think," she said with a smile.

He pulled her into his arms, lifted her and spun her around. She couldn't help but laugh, his enthusiasm was infectious. When he set her down on the floor, he brushed her hair away from her face and hesitated there.

"May I kiss you?" he asked, uncertainly.

Alba was taken by surprise. For all his talk about remembering who was master and who was slave, she was rather surprised that he was asking permission for something as simple as a kiss.

"You may," she told him, closing her eyes and leaning in, heart pounding. His lips pressed against her own were soft and gentle, a stark contrast to the hungry, lusty man who'd assaulted her mouth last night.

"Can we start over again? A re-do, if you will. I behaved a proper arse the other night..." he breathed into her mouth.

"You did," she agreed, pulling back to look at him. "But I suppose we can let bygones be bygones. I will humbly suggest that you are worlds more pleasant when you aren't sloshed, though. Forgive me for smoking your weed and almost ruining surprise dinner with your brother and banshee-in-law?"

"Forgiven," he said, tilting her head back up and claiming her lips with his own once more.


	7. Retrograde Motion

When he wasn't drunk and angry and out of control, he was an absolutely brilliant kisser. Alba found herself clutching tightly to the lapels of his suit, weak in the knees and needing something to hold onto. His arms encircled her, pulling her tighter against him, and he let his hands rest so they were cupping her bum. He gave her a light squeeze through the thin material of the dress, and she pressed herself tighter against him in response, feeling his growing arousal between them.

"Do you really think I'm beautiful and enchanting she asked?" as his head dipped to kiss her throat.

"Of course I do," he whispered against the still-bruised skin there, and she bit her lip. It hurt, but it was a delicious sort of pain, and he was being so incredibly gentle. He scratched lightly at her stomach through the dress, and kissed her again on the lips. "And I'd quite like to do more than just kiss you right now," he said, his tone changing to one laced with desire.

She wanted him to do quite a bit more than kiss her as well, but her body protested the thought. As irresistible as his kisses were, she still ached like she'd been in the ring with a championship fighter.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," she said into his mouth, gently pulling back and forcing him to release her lower lip, which he'd been nibbling on. "I don't think I've quite recovered from our last...encounter," she said finally, and did she hear the regret in her own voice there?

"Ah, I suppose you're right," he said thickly, bending his head down and doing that nervous thing where he pulled at his hair again. She reached out to stop him with her hands, forcing him to look up at her. The puppy dog look on his face was so sad that she almost reconsidered, but then she thought better of it. Whatever this was between them, it was strange, and fragile ,and new. She didn't think it would be good to rush it.

"It's not that I don't want to ever...I just don't think I can right now," she replied softly. "Another time."

"Right, yes of course, another time. Rani was right, it is getting awfully late, and I have a work meeting early tomorrow. Breakfast with me at five?" he asked hopefully.

"Can I go back to sleep after?" she asked, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Sure, I don't care," he said, melting her insides again with his smile. And then, more subdued, he pressed another soft kiss to her lips. "Goodnight, Rose."

He made to pull back, but she grabbed him and held him there, deepening their kiss. She smiled in satisfaction at the low, rumbling moan that issued itself from the back of his throat, and then she pulled back.

"Goodnight, John," she said over her shoulder, leaving him standing in front of the fireplace with a dazed look on his face. She walked down the hall to her room, shut the door behind her, and set the alarm on the antique clock for 4:30 in the morning, which seemed such a short amount of time from now, but she wasn't really thinking about the time. She was thinking of the way his lips had felt and tasted against her own, how rock-hard he'd felt pressed against her belly, even through their clothing. She felt a rush of heat just thinking about.

Sleep would be hard coming tonight. She tugged the dress over her head, unclasped her bra, and let the garments come to fall on the floor. She went to get another night gown from the armoire, but that was the point at which she was interrupted by the knock on her door. Knowing it wouldn't be any one other than him, she answered it as she was.

"Yes?" she barely had a chance to ask before he was pushing into the door and shoving her down onto the bed, although he did so with a great amount of care.

"I can be gentle," he said into her mouth. The sensation of being pinned underneath him wasn't entirely unpleasant, though parts of her bruised body were humming in angry protest. She found at the moment, the resulting headrush she got when he placed his lips against her nipple and sucked made it easier to forget the parts of herself that were still aching and sore. She arched her back, thrusting her chest up at him. He was moving down her body now, his mouth and fingers stopping to pay reverence to every inch of her exposed skin. She thought to herself how this experience so far was proving to be a polar opposite of the other evening. When he reached the damp thatch of curls between her thighs, he parted her legs gently and kneeled there between them. He lightly stroked the skin of her thighs, softly massaging the spots where he had left bruises before. His lips brushed against her skin, and she shivered in anticipation of what was about to come.

He started out tentatively at first, but then became more bold when she began to hum her appreciation low in her throat, licking, kissing and sucking her pearl more aggressively. Even as he did this though, his hands were resting on her hips, tracing lazy circles there with his fingers. She tangled her fingers in his hair, and mimicked the gesture of him pulling his own fingers through it. This time when she came, she tugged on his hair and she didn't bite back her cries of ecstasy. He emerged from between her legs, a wet grin on his face. He sat up on his knees and began to take his own clothing off, methodical but quick. He laid his clothes over the footboard and moved to stretch out beside her on the bed.

Without speaking, she rolled toward him and took his hardened length in her hand, giving it a few experimental pumps. She was rewarded with a hiss and intake of breath from him for her efforts and she smiled, sitting up and moving so that she was now the one kneeling between his legs. She kissed him once on the top of his head, and then rolled her tongue down the length of him, swirling her tongue around his testicles and pausing to take the left one of them into her mouth. She rolled her tongue around it, enjoying the sounds he was making as she did. Not wanting the other to feel neglected, she did the same to the right one before licking back up his shaft again and then taking him into her mouth. He gasped, and twitched his hips, thrusting himself deeper, tickling the back of her throat. She continued licking and sucking, working her way up and down his cock with an ease of practice that brought him shuddering to climax in a few short moments. He let his hand drop on the pillow behind his head, and when he did the kitchen knife wrapped up in her night gown went tumbling out from behind the headboard and onto the floor with a loud metallic clang. She looked up from between his legs, just in time to see the flash of betrayal in his eyes.

"What the hell is this?" he asked softly, bending over to retrieve the knife. There was a hint of that terrifying hardness in his voice again, and she felt her stomach clench in fear.

"It's a knife," she said, her mouth going dry. No sense in trying to lie about the obvious.

"I can see that," he said coldly, running his finger along the edge of the blade. "But why do you have it?"

Alba could only stammer, searching for the answer that wouldn't ruin everything, but by the anger flashing in his eyes, she could already tell that it was too late.

"Nevermind, I think I get the picture," he said gruffly, getting off the bed and gathering up his clothes. He bundled the knife together with his suit, shot a dark look over his shoulder at her, and shut the door behind him. She heard the lock click into place from the other side, and she felt the tears of frustration working their way to spill over her cheeks.

"Doctor, it's not like that!" she called after the sound of his retreating footsteps. "The knife was supposed to be for me…"

If he heard her, he didn't give any indication. She heard footsteps going up a flight of stairs, and then heard a door slam. She rolled over and clutched at her pillow miserably, cursing herself for moving the knife out from under the mattress in the first place. Her thinking had been that it would be easier to get to in the event she had needed it, for self-defense or other darker purposes, but it had only backfired on her. She didn't even have the mobile phone Jack had left her, was locked alone in a room with nothing but herself and her thoughts.

That night, she cried herself to sleep.

She wasn't exactly sure of how much time passed-she slept a lot, in the absence of much else to do. She estimated it had been about three days she had been locked in so far. When she woke up from being asleep, she would find trays of food and drink placed out for her, but she never saw him, never heard him. She didn't know how she could be so lonely for a man whom she barely knew and whose treatment of her bordered on abusive at best, but none the less, she found herself wishing she could see him and that grin that made her melt.

Instead, she thought of her mother and home, and cried an awful lot. It was around the middle of what she estimated was the fourth day when she remembered the pot she'd stashed in the toilet, and the book hidden under the mattress. She retrieved the Tupperware from the toilet tank, grateful she had thought to put a book of matches and a piece of aluminum foil in with it. She shut and locked the door to the ensuite, and sat down on the floor, using the flat surface of the book to construct and load her makeshift pipe with. She tried not to think of the Alzheimer's she was giving herself as she inhaled the fragrant smoke, but once again it didn't take long until she was pleasantly fuzzy around the edges and only feeling the dullest traces of pain from her mostly healed bites and bruises. She flipped the book back open to the section on Taurus women, and continued reading. With interest, she noticed that someone had placed an asterisk next to the compatibility description for a Taurus woman and a Scorpio man.

_Being opposite signs of the zodiac, the connection between a Taurus woman and a Scorpio man can be nothing short of intense. Both are enormously passionate signs, both with larger than life cravings to satisfy. While Taurus craves material things, Scorpio craves power, and together the two of them can rule the world or bring it to its knees, each striking the balance for the other. So long as Taurus will allow Scorpio to take the reins most of the time, this can be a match that will burn hot and bright and forever._

_Both Taurus and Scorpio hold a stable relationship in high-esteem, but it takes effort to get to that place. While Taurus is unflinchingly honest and craves the same honesty in return, it is in Scorpio's nature to play his cards close to the vest, preferring to retain a certain level of mystery to his person. For a Scorpio, a steady relationship provides a reassurance to them that they have a deep connection with someone else, and they will often be incredibly possessive and territorial when it comes to their partner. If Taurus can show Scorpio that she only has eyes for him, it can go a long way toward securing the future of the relationship._

_While Taurus is ruled by Venus, Scorpio is ruled by Mars and Pluto, a combination that makes for an intense coupling due to the balance of masculine and feminine energies. Scorpio will tend to overtake Taurus in many aspects, but Taurus might find herself willing to acquiesce if he plays his cards right. While Taurus is about devotion to a partner, Scorpio's raw, smouldering sexuality is often enough to stoke the flames for both partners, and he will delight in pleasing Taurus and reveling in her devotions._

_But Taurus should beware of Scorpio's stinger, and woe to the lover that crosses him! Due to both signs propensity for jealousy, lover's spats are a likely occurrence if eyes should wander. On the same token, nothing is sexier to Taurus than when Scorpio stakes a claim and expresses his jealousy-for Taurus, this is merely a sign of approval!_

_Communication is key for this pairing, as Taurus is very much an open book, while Scorpio is more the inscrutable, brooding type, and both are prone to stubbornness. Taurus will usually win arguments, but Scorpio will often chose to achieve their ends through more devious means, using emotional manipulation and sex as a tool to get what they desire. So long as they can learn to open their minds and trust each other, this can be one of the strongest, most intense, and rewarding bonds for a Taurus woman._

Alba took another hit on the tinnie and mulled Melody Pond's words over. She flipped back to the contents again, noticing a scrawling on the opposite page that she had missed the first time around: "Property of Romana Dvoratrelundar".

_Talk about a mouthful of a name!"_ she thought to herself. She didn't have time to wonder who Romana might even be though, because at that moment a knock came not on the bedroom door, but on the door of the ensuite.

"Rose? It's Jack. Are you alright in there?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine...just got caught up in my thoughts," she called to him, lifting the toilet tank to stash her tinnie and the rest of the bud. She replaced the lid as carefully and quietly as she could, quickly dropped her eyes with some Visine ,and sprayed the can of air freshener that was sitting underneath the bathroom sink.

Great. Now it just smelled like she was smoking weed AND taking an Alpine stroll. Hearing Jack shuffling impatiently on the other side of the door, she realized she couldn't hold him off any longer. She whipped open the door, almost sending him tumbling into the room, as he'd been leaning against the frame.

"Sorry," she said, slipping past him and shutting the door behind her. He was regarding her with an amused look.

"Were you…?" he mimed smoking a spliff.

"No," she said. "I didn't have any rolling papers, so I used a bit of foil instead."

"That shit will give you Alzheimer's," he replied, taking a seat next to her on the bed.

"Great. At least then, I won't be able to remember how much I hate my life," she said dismally.

"Well, all that aside, I'm not here without purpose. The Doctor asked me to pick you up and bring you to the seamstress."

"For…?" she asked, waving her hand to indicate that he should elaborate further.

"For your wedding gown fitting, dear. You're getting married in less than a month."


	8. All The World's A Stage

"...my wedding dress fitting? So...we're actually getting married? Like, legally?" Alba asked, her mouth going dry.

Jack just chuckled. "Um, well yeah. It kind of has to be legally binding for the Doctor to retain control of the bus...his finances."

"So wait...how is that going to work? If he doesn't want anyone to know my real name, how are we going to have a proper wedding?"

"A man that wealthy has connections. He has established an identity for you here, has papers in your new name. That's how. So it will be legally binding, but only in a sense. Rose Tyler will be married. Alba Prentice...no one knows who that is here," Jack said, offering her a smile.

"You keep saying 'here'. Where exactly are we, Jack?" she asked, crossing her arms and sticking her lip out at him like a defiant child.

"Nowhere important."

"Jack...I've been in a room for...I don't even know how long. It feels like an eternity, but it might be no time at all. I can't tell. I just...I keep wishing I would see him, or he would at least say something to me, but there's been nothing. I just...I'm starting to feel desperate, Jack," she admitted, wringing her hands. "I honestly think I'd rather die though, than marry him right now. If I have to play a charade fine, but I won't do it with a man who hates me."

"He doesn't hate you, Rose, I promise you that. And the reason you haven't seen him is because he had urgent business to attend to back in New London. I've been the one bringing you food, and the reason you haven't seen me is because you've been dead asleep every time I've come in. And the only reason I kept the door locked, before you ask, is because I was afraid you might hurt yourself otherwise if I didn't. There was enough in your room that you could've used I suppose, if you'd really wanted to. But I didn't need you getting out and into the nightshade, the knives, or the booze."

"Who's Romana Dvor...dvrora...trelundar?" she asked, filing away the information he was giving her, but trying to contain any reaction or emotion she might be feeling about. She herself wasn't even sure what she felt, especially not in the wake of the news that she was about to be going to her wedding dress fitting. This was a thing she had always imagined she would do with her mother, not with a slick but charming man in another city, far from home. And especially not in a forced marriage arrangement, either, false names or otherwise.

Jack's demeanor immediately changed. He became guarded, unsure. "Where did you see or hear that name?"

"I saw it in a book," she replied, not bothering to elaborate further. She expected him to press her for more information, and was surprised when he sighed, and seemed to sag a little internally.

"I suppose you're bound to find out soon enough, but I swear...if he asks you who told you or where you found out, you better not mention my name or I swear, it'll be the last bit of information you ever get out of me. Got it?" Jack asked, his voice the hardest and coldest she'd ever heard it since first meeting him. "You _do not_ tell him that you know these things. He's insanely private, and if he knows you know and that I told you...livid doesn't cover it. And I know you've seen him drunk and angry, no repeat performances needed. So I'm going to tell you a few things, because I want you to understand the Doctor, and I don't want you to hate him, although you probably still will and I completely understand why. So listen carefully, because I'll only tell you once, and I'll deny it to my grave that I ever said anything at all. Are we sympatico, Rose?"

"Yeah," she asked, feeling a slight thrill of anticipation. Whatever Jack was about to tell her must be major, if all the fanfare and death glares were involved. She was rapt, hanging on his every word.

"Romana was the Doctor's wife," Jack began, and held his hand up to silence her when she gasped and started to ask him questions. "They were very young when they got married, only sixteen. They were seventeen when they had their daughter, and nineteen when Romana and the baby were killed in an accident. I can't tell you exactly what he used to do, but the Doctor was in a dangerous and sensitive line of work, and the accidnet that killed his wife and daughter was a hit gone wrong that was intended for him."

Alba's hand flew up to her mouth. "Oh my God! That's horrible!" she gasped, suddenly feeling sorry for the man. She couldn't imagine anything more heartbreaking.

"That first night you were here? The night of the incident-" Jack began.

"The night he assaulted me, Jack" Alba interjected, narrowing her eyes at him. "Let's be honest about what happened. He was drunk, and overpowered me. Whether I had wanted it to happen or not it would have, so I just took the more passive route rather than struggle, because I didn't want to prolong the experience. And since we're being honest, I'll tell you this, too-I came, and I've hated myself for that a little bit since then."

"Rose, I know, and I'm sorry. I am _definitely not_ making excuses or condoning what he did to you. I hate that your very first impression of him was that, because he's so much more than a monster, Rose...he's a very damaged man, and the love of a good woman would probably do him some good. I don't expect you to love him...but maybe just understand the nature of the beast. Because you asked me a question, and because I don't want you to feel desperate and completely left out in the dark. Because I like you, and I see something good in you, and I think maybe you could be good for the Doctor if you could find it in you to open your heart to him, just a tiny bit," Jack said, stopping to take a breath. He seemed to be hesitating, on the verge of saying something else, agonizing over it, even. "That first night you were here was the ten year anniversary of his wife and daughter's death."

Alba sucked in a breath of air. It was still awful, but at least it made a little bit of sense. She was torn, between wanting to hate him and feeling a deep sense of sorrow and pity for the man, who had obviously never quite gotten over the awful thing that had happened to his young family. The ten year anniversary of it had likely ripped his wounds fresh open, and he'd probably been craving human contact without the desire to explain why to her. Still, she wasn't about to give it away that she _might_ be on the verge of possibly forgiving him something that was way past the village of Minor Transgression and well into the territory of Unforgivably Repugnant. Still, she couldn't forget the way it made her feel when he smiled at her...and well, the orgasms hadn't really been terrible, either. That was what made it even more awful was that there seemed to be some bizarre sort of chemistry between herself and the Doctor that she couldn't even begin to cope with or understand.

"Plenty of people deal with tough shit without growing up to be rapists or psychopaths," she insisted weakly. Jack gave her a look that told her he could tell that her resolve was wearing.

"Listen, the Doctor will be back later tonight, and you've got your fitting shortly. It'll be good for you to get out. Maybe when he gets back, you two can talk," Jack said, taking something from his coat pocket. Given his previous protests that he wouldn't lay a finger on her or risk the Doctor's wrath, Alba was quite surprised to see a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, a red silk blindfold, and a pair of noise cancelling headphones.

"Jack…?" she asked looking at him, not sure what to make of the sight in front of her.

"Sorry," he said apologetically, cuffing her hands at her waist. They were tight around her wrists, tight enough that she couldn't slip through them, but not so tight that they cut off her circulation. The chain on the cuffs was short, and didn't allow much room for maneuvering, but Jack still used a carabiner, the type that you have to screw open and shut, to secure the cuffs to a belt he pulled around her waist, seemingly from nowhere. "You're not supposed to see or hear where we're going."

She grew a bit panicky at the thought of losing two of her senses, plus her freedom of movement. She strained against the cuffs. "No, please! Not the darkness…" she moaned.

"It's just until we get into the car, and for when we get out of it. For the ride, we can talk. It's going to take us a little bit to get to the seamstress-she doesn't live here, lives in a small town about an hour away. It'll be okay, I promise," he soothed, placing the headphones over her ears before she had a chance to protest. She could feel him guiding her out of the room, down the hall, and around what felt like a labyrinth. At one point, she felt the telltale sinking sensation that indicated they were in a lift, and then shortly there after Jack was helping her into the hover car and she could feel them lifting up and pulling away. After they'd been flying for a few minutes, Jack reached over and plucked the headphones from her ears. In the background, she could hear the soft, muffled sound of air moving over the outside shield of the car, and old big band music turned down so low that the words were indistinguishable over the brassy sounds of the instruments and the soft rush of the wind outside.

They sat in almost silence for what could've been forever; she had a hard time telling. Alba found that she actually didn't have a whole lot to say, but had plenty to mull over, and so she remained silent. To his credit, Jack seemed to sense her need to process and absorb what he'd told her, and he didn't make attempts at light flirtation or banter with her. Eventually, hesitantly, he draped his arm over her shoulder, but it was in a friendly, brotherly sort of way. She leaned against him, grateful for the quiet companionship at the moment. She didn't realize she'd nodded off until Jack was shaking her awake and telling her they were there, and apologizing for having to put the headphones on her again. She allowed him to help her out of the car and lead her to wherever their destination was. It didn't take too long to get there, and once they were inside he removed them from her head and unlocked and removed the fuzzy cuffs. He began to chatter with a woman in a language that she didn't recognize.

"Jessuro's going to undress you now, completely, and fit your garments from scratch. Don't be alarmed, she's very gentle and knows exactly what she's doing," Jack cautioned her, not wanting her to be taken completely by surprise.

"If you say so," Alba said, although she wasn't feeling especially reassured. Still, so far Jack had been the closest thing to a person she could trust recently, and she wanted to believe he was telling her the truth. She felt dry, smooth hands begin to slip her simple garments off her body, and then felt those same hands wind a tape measure around each thigh, her waist, her hips, her bust. The woman muttered to herself most of the time, although Alba still was unable to understand her. The hands and the muttering voice disappeared for a few moments and when they returned they were urging her to step into what felt like a pair of silk knickers and suspenders She felt the unmistakable constriction of a bodice being pulled, laced, and tightened around her upper torso, and then slightly relaxed and adjusted on her frame.

After a few more minutes of disappearing, and some more seemingly animated chatter with Jack, the seamstress returned and tapped the backs of Alba's calves, indicating she should step into the pair of shoes the woman was guiding her feet into. They felt tall, but chunkier than the heels she normally wore on a night out clubbing with her mates. Once she had gotten a steady footing, the seamstress guided her to step carefully forward. She felt a garment being pulled up and around her, and even buttoned into it, it still felt a bit loose.

"Wow...Rose. I wish you could see yourself right now, you look amazing," Jack said, and the awe in his voice was sincere. "It almost fits you perfectly, just needs to be taken in a little bit. Hold tight."

"Can I see?" she asked hopefully.

"Not this time, doll," Jack said regretfully. "But you'll get to see the finished product once it's ready, and that'll be even better."

Alba had her doubts about this, but sensed that there was no arguing to be done over this one. She let the seamstress pinch, pull, and poke the fabric around her into submission before pinning it. Jessuro took a few more final measurements before helping Alba back out of the dress and complicated under garments. Her and Jack exchanged some more conversation in the strange, unrecognizable language, and then the seamstress helped her back into her nightgown. Jack was right behind her with the fuzzy cuffs and headphones.

Back in the car and snuggled against Jack's side, she silently mulled over everything that had happened that day, and what she would possibly say to the Doctor when she saw him that wouldn't give away her new knowledge of his past. It was going to be hard not to give away that she knew something, and would probably require a little acting, fibbing and finesse on her part.

_All the world's a stage…_ was the last thought that popped into her head before she drifted back off to sleep.


	9. Old Memories of Pleasure, Ancient Histor

Back at the penthouse, Alba was relieved to have the cuffs, blindfold and headphones all removed together. Jack's expression was still overly apologetic as he sat down on the bed beside her.

"So now what?" she asked.

"Now? You're free to do what you want. The Doctor will be back from New London in about five or six hours. I'll hang out here in the library though, so I'll be around if you need me," he said.

"Well...maybe we could all have dinner together. When he gets back. I could cook for all of us," Alba suggested, thinking of ways she could potentially keep Jack around for longer, as a buffer. She was nervous the Doctor would know right away something was up if it was just the two of them.

He smiled again, apologetically. "Sorry kiddo, but I'm afraid I've already got late dinner arrangements with my boyfriend Alonso when he gets out of work. I'm sure you'll be fine. Really. I've already suggested to the Doc that he ought to lay off the sauce if he didn't want to alienate you completely. Maybe have some wine with dinner, just keep him away from the hard stuff and you should be fine. Besides, you're a charming and vivacious young girl, I'm sure you can think of other ways to entertain each other that don't involve tequila and regret."

"I suppose you're right," she replied, trying to return his smile with a tentative one of her own.

"When it comes to stuff like this, I usually am," he told her with a wink.

"Oh? And what sort of 'stuff' would this be?" she asked him, raising her eyebrows.

"The Doctor. I've known him a long time, I kind of get how he ticks. Also, matchmaking and seduction, other things that I'm usually really great with," he said lightly.

"You forgot to mention modesty. Also something you're really great at," she said, rolling her eyes at him good naturedly.

"I just thought that one went without saying," he said, blowing a kiss at her over his shoulder as he bowed out the door.

Alone in the privacy of the Bedroom Formerly Known As Prison (as she was thinking of it in her head; when she got hysterical, those were the sorts of stupid things that popped into her mind), she had a moment to reflect on how skeeved out she was to have gone to a wedding dress fitting without having bathed. The patina of grime on her may have been mostly invisible, but it felt several layers thick, and she was quite literally itching to scrub it off her body. She didn't have anything sufficiently scrubby in the bathroom, so she ransacked the kitchen to make her own. He had a lot of fancy accoutrements and high end products; almost nothing in the cabinets was store brand, or any brand she recognized at all, honestly. It occurred to her then that she might possibly be in another country, not just another city.

She gathered her ingredients, and studied the labels on each carefully for any clue as to where they might have been purchased. Something that might help to identify where she was, but it seemed most of the ingredients were imports: muscovado sugar from the coast of the Republic of Africa, blood orange olive oil and kaffir limes from Constantinople 3, and vanilla bean paste from Mexico. Which was curious. It was just from Mexico. Not New New Mexico, or the Benevolent Commune of Former South America...just Mexico. As in Earth Mexico, the one that had existed on the planet that her home planet had been designed to mimic, at least in some ways. She opened the jar though, and the paste smelled fresh and not millions of years stale and expired, so she figured it probably was some kind of printing error. The labels were surprisingly nondescript otherwise. No dice on that front.

Pressing down, she rolled the lime vigorously under her palm to release the juices and oils in it. She had heard about kaffir limes and their fragrant leaves, but had never actually used them before due to the fact that they were significantly more expensive than whatever sad pedestrian limes they had sold at the Tesco Express in between the shop and her flat back home in New London. The juice and flesh were too bitter for culinary preparations, but supposedly excellent for cosmetics. She sliced the lime and squeezed it over a scoop of sugar, splashed it with the blood orange olive oil, threw a small spoonful of the vanilla bean paste on top, and mixed it all together with her hands as she walked back to her room. It kind of smelled like dessert, and her stomach rumbled. She actually felt a bit hungry, which was a refreshing change from the nausea and stomach knots she had been having since the slave exchange..

She wiped the sugary scrub off on the tops of her thighs, but her fingers were still oily and she had to use a towel as a grip to turn on the faucet. Standing in the tub, she scrubbed herself down until the sugar mixture had all been used up, and then she used the plastic container she'd mixed it in to splash herself with clean water from the faucet. Once she was sure both dirt and sugar had dissolved down the drain, she put the stop in and sat back to soak as the water level rose, thinking about the strangeness of that particular day, and knowing that the strangest days yet were probably still to come for her. She continued her bathing routine on autopilot, thinking about what Jack had said earlier about the Doctor's wife. She wondered what line of work he could have been in at nineteen that was so dangerous that someone had taken a hit out on him, and how could it have ended up killing his wife and daughter instead of him? She was morbidly curious, but of course she couldn't exactly ask him out right about it and Jack had told her all he was comfortable divulging, she was pretty sure.

iCuriouser and curiouser…/i she thought to herself, and then next of the Doctor's Cheshire cat grin by association. She realized part of what distressed her so much about him was that she felt drawn to him and really wanted to like him, but she also felt that internal sense of revulsion that most people would feel towards a person who had essentially kidnapped them. Of course it was absurd, but a part of her couldn't help but feel that liking the Doctor would almost be a betrayal to her mother, who had to be suffering without Alba there to provide either financial or emotional support. Still, she had read once in a book that holding hate in your heart was like drinking poison and expecting the object of your loathing to die in your stead. There was no point in hating the Doctor she decided, she had nothing to gain from it. Without hate, and not sure if she could bring herself to like him, she wasn't sure what that actually left her with other than a hollow feeling inside.

"Rose, what the hell? You didn't answer the door when I knocked and...shit, did you severe a vein or something!?"

The sound of Jack's slightly panicked voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she looked down to see blood pouring down the back of her calf. Somehow she had nicked herself something fierce shaving, and she'd been so out of it that she hadn't even felt it! Suddenly though, the sight of her blood bright red and swirling away from her made her feel a bit woozy, and the razor slipped out of her hand and fell onto the tile outside of the tub with a clatter. She stood up to retrieve it and her vision swam, and then she felt Jack catching her under the arms when she slipped on the surface of the tub, still slick from the olive oil.

It might've been awkward, her wet and naked body pressed against him, but she was still bleeding everywhere and feeling dizzy. Jack deposited her gently on the toilet, and fished through the drawers until he found what he was looking for: individual disposable styptic wipes.

"I won't even lie...this will hurt like hell. All the damn technology we have, and they haven't designed a no-sting hemostatic yet. Sometimes the old-fashioned way works best, I guess."

Alba swore and nearly kicked him in the face when he pressed the wipe against the cut on her calf. For his part, Jack didn't even seem insulted by this. He was kneeling on the floor, pressing the styptic against her calf and staring at her toes.

"What's wrong?" she asked him. He was still staring down, refusing to meet her gaze.

"Nothing, Rose. It's just from down here, I'm about eye level with your...anyway, yeah. I'm trying to be a gentleman, that's all," he said, and his voice was thick.

"Oh. Yeah right, right, of course you are," she said, feeling embarrassed. He got up and grabbed her towel, and threw it at her. She caught it and draped it loosely around her body, using her arms to hold it pressed against her sides. Jack stayed across the room, leaning stiffly against the counter, and even from her vantage point she could tell that his posture wasn't the only part of him that was stiff at the moment. A stupid, wistful part of her almost wished it had been Jack who'd kidnapped her then, because at least he was kind to her and explained things and seemed to get her. She couldn't say she wasn't attracted to him either, and she swallowed hard, on the verge of doing something that was definitely stupid.

"Are you okay?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, getting up off the toilet and letting the towel fall away from her body. That time, Jack didn't look away as she approached him. She pressed her breasts against his chest and reached between them to stroke him through his trousers. "But what about you?"

"Rose…" he groaned into her mouth as she pressed her lips against him. "This isn't just a bad idea, it's single-handedly the worst of the decade, probably also the century, possibly the millennium."

"You said yourself the Doctor would be gone for hours. Don't you want me, Jack?" she purred against him.

"Of course I do, any hot blooded man would...but Rose, you are seriously forbidden fruit," Jack said shakily, gently prising her off of him. 'And besides, I have a boyfriend. Alonso, remember?"

Jack didn't look nearly as sure of himself as he sounded when he said this.

"And I have a fiance, apparently, but I quite think I like you better. You're kind and handsome and you make me feel good without terrifying me. Why can't we just disappear somewhere together, away from here?" she pleaded.

"Rose...please. The Doctor is like a brother to me. I can't. That, and we don't have enough money to disappear from him. If the Doctor wants to find you...believe me, he will. If circumstances were different...the things I would do to you," he said, his breath catching in his throat. "But they aren't. It is what it is."

Alba was deflated. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking, doing that to you. I'm just out of my head still with all of this."

Sensing her embarrassment and guilt, Jack smiled devilishly in an attempt to diffuse it. "Well, in your defense, I am all kinds of irresistible. Can't blame a girl for tryin'."

"Shut up, you chav!" she said, snapping her towel at him.

"Takes one to know one, doll."

Jack had already left for his dinner date by the time the Doctor came home. Alba had done a lot of things to keep her mind busy: she'd finished shaving her legs (uneventful), she'd put curlers in her hair (disastrous; it was too humid and they looked more like waves than curls), she'd primped and poked and moisturized and toned and done everything in the world to take her mind off of the things Jack had told her and the embarrassment of being rebuffed when she'd thrown herself at him. Even after all the primping she'd still had time to kill, so she had started making beef stew and reading in the kitchen. She was perched on a stool, a mug of tea in one hand and book in the other when the Doctor came walking into the room. He leaned in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, and the two of them stared uncomfortably at each other for what felt like an eternity and couldn't have been more than a minute.

"What are you reading?" he finally asked, coming into the kitchen and pouring himself a mug of tea from the kettle.

"It's called "_Words of Passion, Words of Love: the Best Love Poems Written by Women_"," she said, turning a page. "They're all older, though, all from Earth. They certainly don't write them like this anymore. Sometimes I wish I grew up on that world...they just seemed so full of love and longing. It was more romantic. Here, it's all dirty text messages and...well, other stuff," she said, thinking that 'slave exchanges' probably fell quite neatly into that descriptive category of 'other stuff'..

"Do you want to be romanced, Rose?" he asked, coming to stand behind her so he could trail his fingers across the back of her neck. She shivered. She had missed his touch, how electric it felt to her.

"Doesn't every woman?" she asked in response, leaning against him and nuzzling the underside of his chin with the top of her head.

"That's a non-answer. I asked what you wanted, not what everyone else wants. You..Alba Prentice. Rose Tyler. What is it that you want? Do you want to be romanced and courted?" he asked, stepping around her so that they were face to face.

"Well...what do you mean?" she asked, thinking she probably knew what he meant, but almost afraid to answer the question she thought he was asking.

"I mean when you're awake late at night, staring up at the ceiling, thinking of the mistakes you've made in the past and how you might avoid them in the future, thinking about the things you want and need, what does that picture look like? Do you want your own career? True love? Money? Power? Passion? What?" he asked, taking her by the shoulders and looking into her eyes with fierce intensity.

"Why are you asking me this now?" she asked him, confused.

"Because," he said, as if that were all the answer she required. Biting her lip, she looked back at him and knew that not answering was not an option.

So she decided to take a shot at being truthful, instead. "I want to fall in love, and have it be worth it. I want to be with someone whom I trust completely, who understands me perfectly and still loves me anyway. I want someone who will make love to me when I can't fall asleep, and hold me when I'm cold and dance with me in the rain. I want someone who will make me smile through the tears. I want someone who I can't breathe without, who is such a part of me that he is essential to my existence. I want to be so consumed by him that I can't tell where I end and he begins, and I want him to feel the same way about me. I want to fall in love with a person that I could make a life and family of my own with, because I never had one growing up. That's what I want, John," she said, choosing to use his name instead of his presumed title. She held her breath, waiting for any sort of reaction from him at all.

She certainly wasn't expecting him to do what he actually did, which was to take the book from her, and start flipping through it. _Really? You're doing that now?_ she thought.

He seemed to find what he was looking for though, as he stopped flipping, adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat, and began to read:

"_We, unaccustomed to courage_  
_exiles from delight_  
_live coiled in shells of loneliness_  
_until love leaves its high holy temple_  
_and comes into our sight_  
_to liberate us into life._

_Love arrives_  
_and in its train come ecstasies_  
_old memories of pleasure_  
_ancient histories of pain._  
_Yet if we are bold,_  
_love strikes away the chains of fear_  
_from our souls._

_We are weaned from our timidity_  
_In the flush of love's light_  
_we dare be brave_  
_And suddenly we see_  
_that love costs all we are_  
_and will ever be._  
_Yet it is only love_  
_which sets us free_."

He unfolded his glasses and tucked them into his pocket, and set the book down on the counter. The air was so still, you could've heard a penny drop, but all Alba could hear was the nervous thump of her heart inside her chest and her breathing, which had quickened noticeably.

"Miss Angelou was a lot more eloquent than I could ever hope to be," he said softly, and now their faces were so close together that she could feel her eyelashes brushing against his skin.

"Why me?" she asked.

"Why you for a wife? Or why you from the slave exchange, out of all the other girls there?" he asked, cupping her face in the palm of his hand.

"Isn't the answer the same?" she asked.

He chuckled to himself, as though she had unknowingly uttered the punchline to a rather amusing private joke. "I suppose you're right, to a point. Why you out all the other girls there? Because when I talked to you, you were fiery and clever and passionate. The fight, the spark of life, it was still bright in you. So many of those other girls...they were beautiful to look at it, but they were essentially just flesh bags, already dead on the inside. You...reminded me of someone I cared for a great deal a very long time ago."

Alba tried not to seem too interested by that last remark, although knowing what she did about him of course it sparked her curiosity, wondering if he was talking about his wife or some other woman he had loved.

"And as a wife…?"

"Well, you said it. The answers are practically the same."

"Oh," she nodded nervously, swallowing. The atmosphere in the room had changed, and it felt as though something were about to happen. "Well, quid pro quo, Doctor. I told you what I want. Now you...tell me what you really want?"

"I think I might have already found it," he replied, pulling her to him and kissing her with the urgency and fervor of a man returning from war.


	10. Dance With Me

The snog was just a tease though, as he broke off the kiss and hugged her instead. "I'm sorry that I'm an emotional, violent arsehole drunk. I was having a rough week, and I used you like a human stress toy, treated you terribly. It's no wonder you had a knife hidden..I would be terrified of me, too. But I really am glad you're here. You have no idea what it's been like being here alone, feeling like I was going mad for the company of another human being," he said, his voice serious. Then, he hastily added, "Even if it's only for the time being. It's good to have a woman's company. You are a bright spot in the darkness."

She was surprised by his sudden show of sincerity, and almost felt bad for wondering if he was being honest. How could he lay bare something as intimate as his feelings, when there was all the secrecy surrounding his real name, his profession, and where he lived? The man was playing his cards close to the vest for a reason, but she didn't know what it could possibly be. There could be a number of innocent reasons he might choose to keep these things from her, as simple as wanting to gauge her trust before telling her, perhaps. When she thought of it like that, she supposed it made perfect sense from his perspective to be careful what he told her. Even with their financial arrangement, there was nothing to stop her from leaving when her end of the bargain had been completed and going directly to the police if she knew who he was. Keeping those details a secret ensured that when she did leave, she probably wouldn't be able to find or identify him again, not unless he wanted her to.

Then, a more chilling thought: _What if he never actually intends to let me go?_

She realized she'd been quiet for a long time since his admission, and he was beginning to get that pained look of a man who's just told a woman that he loves her only to have her respond with either laughter or silence. She cleared her throat, and smiled at him. "I'm sorry, you just caught me off guard. That's the most earnest and sincere thing you've said to me since I've met you, I think. You must be drinking the moonlight tonight."

"The pot is burning," he replied, pointing behind her.

"What? No, I hadn't been smoking today. Already felt kind of like I must be on drugs as it was. A wedding dress fitting in a blindfold and headphones, kind of strange…"

"No, I mean the pot on the stove. It must've overflowed a bit, the burner is smoking," he said, gesturing more urgently.

"Oh!" she said alarmed, but before she could react he had shut off the burner, plucked the stew from the stove, set it on the back burner, and started beating out the low flame with a damp kitchen towel. The flame smouldered and went out.

"Hmm. I guess this means I can say that both you and your cooking are smokin' hot," he chuckled, giving her a cheeky grin.

"Oh, spare me the puns. You've been hanging around your friend Jack too long, I think,"she said, rolling her eyes.

"Stop talking about other men when I'm trying to give you a compliment," he teased, his voice light but firm.

"Stop sending other men to hang out with me, then. He's the only other person I've seen since this whole thing started, of course I'm going to talk to him," she said, poking her tongue out at him.

"Did you ruin dinner?" he asked mildly, taking the lid off the pot to peer at the contents.

"No, I _did not_ ruin dinner," she said indignantly, bumping him out of the way with her hip. She stirred the stew with a big metal spoon, and gave it a taste. "You might want a little extra salt and pepper, but it doesn't taste ruined to me."

"Did you make dessert?" he asked.

"I'm sweet, does that count?" she quipped back at him.

"No, that's okay if you didn't. I had something else in mind, actually...since you like to cook," he said, suddenly sounding a bit shy. "I thought we could make a cake together. It's just...well, I can't lie. You got me thinking the other night, when you said that smoking gets you...anyway, yeah. I have a very good recipe for cannabis oil, and an even better recipe for a flourless chocolate cake. It's a different buzz than smoking, a total body high. You..you might like it."

"Are you some kind of head?" she asked, laughing. He frowned at her, the blush creeping up his collar.

"Hardly, no. I grow because I'm a chemist, and I use it in my research. And as for the cannabis oil...even I was a college boy once. But I actually learned to make it when someone I knew got cancer. They recommended medicinal marijuana for his pain, but he hated smoking, so I came up with the perfect oil recipe and started baking for him instead. Oil aside, my chocolate cake non-cake never fails to impress. Besides...I don't want to drink, and it'd be nice to unwind. It's just a suggestion, though," he said casually.

"I'm game. But first, stew. Real food. Starving. Jack's an alright cook, but his culinary skills are not on par with my own."

"No, no they definitely aren't," the Doctor agreed with a laugh, reaching over her head to get the bowls out of the cabinet. They sat down and ate dinner together, and for all his teasing about how she ruined dinner, it didn't stop him from inhaling three bowls of stew. He probably would've eaten a fourth one, too, if she hadn't raised her eyebrows at him when he'd made to get up and go back for more. Instead, he played it off and put his bowl in the sink, and made a show of washing up instead.

"Isn't that supposed to be my job?" she asked, bringing her bowl and spoon over.

"You cooked, I can clean. Life is about compromise," he said cheerfully, scrubbing out the soup pot.

Who was this alien man and what had he done with the Doctor? Or maybe he really was just a mean drunk, and that was it. She couldn't believe it could ever be anything that simple, though. After he'd finished the dishes, he pulled a jar with a dark green and opaque substance that she assumed was the oil. He pulled out butter, eggs, the vanilla bean paste, semi-sweet chocolate squares, and a bag of plain white sugar that must have been hiding earlier. He premeasured the ingredients with the sort of precision she would expect from a scientist. He grabbed a couple of other things from the cupboard and fridge, and continued making measurements.

"The oil is made with coconut oil. Good for baking, but you have to use some real butter too, for flavor and texture," he explained, melting the butter and oil together in a small saucepan. He chopped up the chunks of chocolate and passed them over to her. "Here, mix these in slowly, and keep stirring until it's melted. Watch the temperature, you don't want it to seize up."

"Look at you, baking a flourless cake. I know men that can't boil toast. What'd you need someone who could cook for?" she asked, teasing.

"I never said I couldn't cook, I just generally prefer to spend my time doing other things. Besides, if you're going to spend that kind of money on a girl, you might as well make sure she can cook and clean."

"Right. Because that's all women are good for is cooking and cleaning," Alba said, poking him in the side.

"I _did not_ say that," he groused. Now it was his turn to play the indignant one as he whisked the eggs, vanilla, and sugar together in a bowl. Though Alba was familiar with the type of torte recipe he was using, she deferred to him, allowing him to guide her through the process rather than interrupting him to tell him she knew how to do it. In less than twenty minutes they had the cake covered in foil and sitting in a water bath in the oven. The Doctor switched it into convection mode, and swore to her it would take less than half an hour for the cake to cook, but an hour for it to set.

"That's a long time to wait for cake when I want it now," she told him solemnly.

"I promise it'll be worth the wait, but if you're really impatient I can put it in the ice box and we can eat it after thirty minutes. It'll be more like chocolate custard than flourless cake, but it'll still be delicious."

"Are you trying to use chocolate and mary jane to seduce me?" she asked him, dragging her finger through what was left of the melted chocolate mixture in the bowl. Before she could bring the finger to her mouth to lick it clean, he caught her hand and did the job for her. Slowly. She watched him do this, lips very slightly parted.

"Yes. Yes I am. Is it working?" he asked her, a twinkle in his eye.

"Not in the slightest," she said, deadpan. "What sort of a chemist are you, anyway?"

"Organic and analytical," he told her, and again she was surprised at his forthrightness, though science had never been her strong subject, so she only had the most basic idea of what that actually meant. "Also, you're a liar. It's totally working."

"How would you know?" she asked him flippantly, although she didn't deny the accusation. He was being downright charming this evening, but she still was cautious around him. His moods had gone from hot and cold so easily before, she wasn't sure that it couldn't happen again.

"Scientist, remember? We're observant. Your pupils are dilated, you're smiling and biting your lips, you're blushing, and I can see your nipples through that dress."

"I just really love chocolate," she told him, maintaining the serious expression on her face. He swiped his own finger through the chocolatey remnants in the bowl, and offered it to her. Wordlessly, she accepted and grasped his hand by the wrist. She popped his finger in her mouth and rolled her tongue around it until all the chocolate was gone. It had a faint, earthy taste from the cannabis oil, but it was almost imperceptible amongst the dark chocolate and other ingredients. At this rate though, she wondered if they would even make it to the actual cake.

"Is it hot in here?" he asked, fanning himself with his hand.

"Probably. The oven is on, after all," she teased, knowing perfectly well that wasn't what he had meant, although now a part of her wanted to see for how long she could prolong his agony, never mind her own.

"You're a cheeky girl," he whispered against her neck, and the things that he was doing there with his lips and tongue felt quite nice.

"No cheekier than you, I'd wager," she said, pulling away from him. He tugged at her imploringly, like a child. She looked at the kitchen timer, and was surprised to see how much time had already gone by. The cake was just about ready to come out of the oven. "Cake is almost done."

"That's not the only thing that's almost done," he muttered under his breath. She pretended not to hear him, and when the timer buzzed she carefully pulled the cake out of its water bath and let it to set on top of the stove. He came up behind her and peered over her shoulder at it when she peeled back the foil. "Looks good. You're really supposed to let it set for a few hours, but if you want to speed set it you can cover it with wax paper and stick it in the ice box."

"_Stick it in_ the ice box, mmm?' she asked, raising her eyebrows at him. It was almost too easy to get him to blush.

"You...are a bad, bad woman," he said, shaking his head as he watched her bend over to pull out the ice box drawer.

"Yeah, well...you picked me," she retorted, glad he couldn't see her smiling.

"That I did," he agreed. "That I did."

While they waited for the cake to set the rest of the way (more at her insistence than his), she put on a fresh kettle and they had tea, trading small talk and witticisms while they waited. She hadn't looked at the clock in a while, but the hour felt late. "You don't have work in the morning, do you?"

"No, thank God," he said, sounding a bit frustrated at the mere mention of his job.

"Work been stressful lately?" she asked conversationally, although she of course had her own ulterior motives for asking..

"You could say that, yeah," he said, and his tone indicated that the subject was closed.

Now she was even more intrigued. He'd had no problem sharing that he was a chemist with her, but evidently he didn't want to go into anything more specific than that. Again, she couldn't help but wonder exactly what his job entailed that he was so secretive about it. Then, something that Jack had said to her popped into her head. She debated bringing it up, not wanting to possibly get Jack in trouble. He had told her that in order for the Doctor to retain control of his finances, he had to be married, but it had sounded like he had started to say business instead. Thinking better than to risk betraying her only confidant, she decided not to mention it, although she wondered if maybe that was how the Doctor had come by his wealth; he owned his own chemical business of some sort?

"It should be set up enough that we can eat it now, if you'd like," he said, interrupting her musings.

"If I'd like? Why else have I been sitting here, if not for cake?" she asked, throwing up her arms in mock upset.

"For the witty repartee, I figured," he said, getting up to retrieve the pan from the icebox. He cut them each a small sliver from the cake and put the portions in small bowls. He was right about doing the quick set-the texture was more French custard than flourless cake, but he hadn't lied when he'd said it was delicious. She had finished her slice in no time at all.

"So you didn't like it all I guess?" he asked her sarcastically.

"No. Definitely not," she said, licking the fork.

He gave her an amused eyebrow raise, and finished his own slice. "It can take up to an hour to kick in sometimes, depending on how fast your metabolism is."

"I could always speed up the process by eating another slice of cake," she suggested.

"Let's see how you make it through this one first," he said, depositing their bowls in the sink. "May I suggest we move to the library? Music and possibly a nightcap? The nightcap being in the singular," he added for clarity's sake.

"I don't suppose why not," she said, and she wasn't sure if the bubbly, giddy feeling she was starting to get in her stomach were the cake, or just him. He walked her out of the kitchen with his arm arm around her waist.

"Shall I light a fire?" he asked her when they got to the library.

"Do you think we'll be spending that much time here?" she asked him honestly.

"I suppose not," he replied, instead choosing to drop a record onto the player. As the music queued up, he offered her his hand. "May I?"

Alba laughed nervously. "I'm not all that good of a formal dancer."

His eyes were already dancing, and she felt her stomach drop into her knees when he lowered that smoldering gaze to her own. "And this isn't a formal dance. The trick is just to keep moving your feet," he said, pulling her to him.

Together they swayed slowly in front of the fireplace. He let his hands come to rest on her hips, and she leaned her head against his chest. Something in the gesture felt very comfortable and familiar, and she sighed, almost contentedly if she was being honest with herself. This had been a semi-normal evening, minus the Dutch-style dessert. Dinner, dessert, and dancing. With her husband-to-be. Two weeks ago she'd been a shop girl, and now...this. It still felt surreal, like any moment someone would either wake her up or tell it had all been part of some very terrible reality TV show (she had seen stranger, including the one where the lady married a giant cat).

The sensations of his lips pressed against her own and his hips tilting to meet hers felt real enough, though. She clung tighter to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and parting her lips just slightly. His ran his tongue across her bottom lip and nipped her gently, eliciting a low, throaty growl from her in response. His fingers were lightly tracing the curve of her spine, and she felt one of his hands slip down the open back of her dress to cup her arse before moving back up to rest on her hip again. They were less dancing now, more so holding each other in an embrace that was becoming increasingly salacious. He nestled his head in the crook of her neck and just barely brushed his lips across her collarbones, sending a shiver up her spine and making the heat in her belly tense and coil. His one hand crept up to bury itself in her hair, keeping her face upturned, her lips pressed against his, his mouth tasting her own hungrily, but not forcefully.

Finally, he pulled back from her, his breathing a bit ragged. "Come to bed with me."

"In your bedroom? Like to sleep?" she asked, eyes going wide. She still hadn't even found the front door yet, let alone seen his bedroom. It was a prospect that both thrilled and terrified her.

"Yes in my bedroom, and no, not to sleep. Not right away, anyway," he said, giving her that wide, toothy grin that she now wasn't sure if it made her uncomfortable or aroused. "So...are you coming?"

"Do I have a choice?" she asked, feeling a sudden germ of doubt curling within her. What if his bedroom was the room where he kept the whips and chains and Iron Maiden? Just because he'd seemed almost normal tonight didn't mean she had so quickly forgotten the way he had been with her before.

"Well yes...of course you do. I don't want to make you feel like you don't. We can play at being husband and wife without having to be intimate with each other, but I thought it was kind of obvious. There's something between us, and you feel it too."

She resisted the urge to tell him that there _was_ something between them, and it was currently poking her in the stomach. There was no fire burning in the library, at least not in the real sense of the word, but there was a heat and energy that was palpable coming off the two of them.

"So what do you say?" he coaxed, tracing the curve of her jaw with his thumb.

"Yes."


	11. Safe This Time

"You've got to be kidding me," Alba said in disbelief, staring at the place where the wall had opened up to reveal a wide, curving marble staircase. "So...any chance you're a chemist and a secret agent? Because this? This is some secret agent lair shit," she giggled. After the Doctor had invited her to bed with him and she had accepted, he had taken her hand and lead her down the hall to a nondescript door.

She had opened it to find a coat closet, and shot him a funny look. "Are we going to bed, or playing seven minutes in heaven?"

"Just go inside," he'd said, shoving her in ahead of him without waiting for a response. He'd pulled the door shut behind them, and reached over his head to pull the chain that turned on the lights.

They had been standing very close together, and the coats had only made it feel that much more crowded. She had stared at him, uncomprehending and unamused. He'd urged her through the coats, ducking his head under the rack behind her. She'd been surprised to find that past the coats the space opened up a little bit. What had looked to her a bit like a fuse box was flush with the left corner of the wall, and the Doctor had opened the cover, bent down in front of it, and then a few seconds later the wall directly in front of her had slid up, revealing the staircase.

He didn't say anything in response to her exclamations, just looked pleased with himself, like a cat who's caught a bird he'd been after for a while. "After you," he whispered, gesturing to the staircase. Once she started up he followed behind her, and it wasn't a long walk to the top of the landing. The single, solid wooden door featured a series of intricate and elaborate etchings that looked like a pattern or symbols. She couldn't make sense of it, but it was beautiful.

"Old symbols of protection," he said from behind her, as if sensing her curiosity. He reached into the interior pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a long, thin cylindrical object with a blue bulb at the end of it. Blue light pulsing and emitting a high-pitched whine, he aimed the device at the door and it popped right open.

"What the hell…?" she gaped at the open door, and then at him, spinning the device between his fingers with a satisfied grin before tucking it back into his pocket. "What the hell was that?"

"That, Rose, was my sonic screwdriver. It's just one of my many inventions, has a couple of useful functions, and a lot of pointless ones too, actually. But one of the things it's really good at is opening doors. It resonates sound waves and ipop/i! The locks open right up," he said, his grin widening.

"Isn't that like...illegal?" she asked.

"Weeeeell...the device isn't available to the general public anyway. Strictly my own thing," he said, pushing the door open. He beckoned her inside, and shut the door behind them, locking it from the inside with a key already in the lock. "Besides...things here are a little different than they were..or are...in New London. The laws here aren't the same."

"No one will even tell me where 'here' is, but they sure keep talking about it," she said, sounding put out. She was looking around the room now for the first time, surprised. She hadn't really been sure what to expect, but she didn't know that it was this.

They seemed to be in some kind of antechamber, with thick, blue velvet curtains hanging around the door and on the walls. A giant teak wood dresser nestled out of one set of curtains, and a full standing mirror was positioned across from it. Three marble steps lead up from the antechamber to the actual bedroom, where a giant canopy bed across from a massive marble fireplace dominated the room. Opposite of the fireplace, a bank of windows looked down on the city below. Beyond the bed and the fireplace, three more marble steps lead up to an area lined with bookshelves with large, overstuffed living chairs on either side of the space. In the middle of the bookshelves was another door, which she assumed lead to a walk-in or ensuite.

"Not all secrets are bad secrets, Alba. Some are just secret because they have to be. The less you know about some things, the safer you are. I learned that the hard way, a long time ago. Secrets keep us safe," he said, tracing the curve of her jaw with his thumb again.

"Like the secret of why you look at me like you're seeing a ghost sometimes?" she asked, pressing her palm against his hand, which was already cupping her cheek. She knew it was treading thin ice even as she said it, but she was curious to see how he'd react. He dropped his hand when she said this, and stepped back to look at her.

"What do you mean I look at you like I'm seeing a ghost sometimes?" he asked her, his tone steady.

"You told me I remind you of someone...and then sometimes I just catch you looking at me in a way that...I don't even know how to describe the way it feels. It's like you're looking at me and remembering something, but I don't know what it is you could possibly be remembering, not when we hardly know each other. Who are you really seeing when you look at me?" she asked him softly.

"I'm just seeing you, Rose. You remind me of someone I loved once...but you aren't her," he said, and his voice was heavy, tinged with something. Regret? Longing? Pain? He just looked so maudlin then that she regretted having said anything in the first place. Part of her had expected fire and anger at the suggestion. This was almost pitiful, and somehow worse.

"Well, nevermind all that. Forget I even asked," she said, moving to close the gap between them.

Placing her hands on his shoulders, she smiled at him seductively and began to slide his jacket from his shoulders. He didn't say anything, but he didn't make a move to protest, either. His eyes were large and dark, watching her as she moved to take his tie off. She hadn't dated many men who'd worn ties, and she was unaccustomed to taking them off of another person. This time though, her inexperience at the task didn't seem to bother him, and he waited patiently for her fingers to pull the knot loose and slide the tie off of him. It wasn't inexperience, but nerves that made her fingers shake when it came to undoing the buttons on his shirt and trousers. It wasn't as though this was the first time they were seeing each other naked or having sex, but something about this night was different from the previous two encounters, and had her the sort of nervous-skittish she'd been the night she'd lost her virginity. She pushed his shirt off his shoulders, and tilted her head up to kiss him while she pushed his trousers and pants over his hips and to the floor. With amusement, she noticed he was wearing trainers with his suit.

"Sorry," he whispered apologetically as she bent down to untie them, though he didn't elaborate further on his unique footwear choices.

"No, s'alright. I kind of like them. Very punk rock. Matches the spikey hair quite nice, I think," she said, loosening the laces. When she'd done that he just kicked the shoes off, and used his toes to peel his socks off. Bemused, she couldn't help but grin at him. He was completely naked and slowly growing hard again, but she was still almost entirely fully clothed, save for the shoes she had abandoned a while ago, before they'd even gone to the library.

"I'll be sure to file that away for future reference," he said, turning her so that her bare back was facing him.

He placed a hand on each shoulder and moved slowly to loosen the knot that held her halter up, making sure to stroke his fingers across the back of her neck and ears as he did. Each minute touch set her body tingling, and by the time he'd untied the knot and let the garment fall from her body to pool around her feet, she was pulled as taut as a violin string. He pressed himself against her, and she could feel him, hot and hard against the small of her back. Against the back of her neck she felt the brush of his lips, warm and moist as he kissed his way from shoulder to shoulder. She felt his arms wrap around her body, his hands creep up to cup her breasts. Lightly, he began pull and tug on her nipples as he continued to kiss her neck, and she couldn't help it, she was leaning back against him and sighing breathlessly.

While his right hand continued to massage her breasts in turn, the left trailed down her body, stopping to rest on her hip. She felt his fingers tracing patterns there, moving their way across her abdomen so that his hand was hovering right below her navel. His fingers just brushed through her curls, teasing, making her shiver in anticipation. He grazed past her clit, dipping one finger between her folds to feel that she was nearly ready for him. He groaned a little against her shoulder, and she felt him shift to pick her up, cradling her against him like a newborn child or a new bride. Carefully, he carried her up the three marble steps to the bed, where he arranged her almost reverently on top of the duvet before climbing onto the bed after her. She laid on her side, slightly propped up by the pillows she was resting on. He stretched out on his side and turned to face her, letting his right hand rest on her left hip. She shifted, moving her body closer to him so that they were almost face to face. The look on his face was one of quiet contemplation, but his gaze was fixed on her and it was a bit unsettling. He almost seemed to be studying her, and even as his hands moved to caress her body she could see that his mind was still moving a million miles an hour in that head. She knew better than to ask a man what was going through his mind in the middle of the bedroom, though.

If he truly was distracted by other thoughts, she couldn't tell the difference. He seemed content to map every inch of her body with his fingers and lips, tasting and touching as he went, starting at the soft spot on her neck right below her ear, where her pulse beat hot and fast, and moving downwards from there. He hadn't been exaggerating when he'd told her the cake would give her a total body high-part of her felt like she was floating, untethered. The only thing anchoring her to the bed were his touches, which burned impossibly hot against her body when she already felt consumed by the flames of desire. He took turns sucking on each of her nipples like they were hard candies, nipping and licking the sensitive little peaks of flesh until they were aching, poking up hard and straight and she was gasping and trembling underneath him. He flicked them gently with his fingers, smiling when she groaned and started biting on her own fingers. Apparently satisfied that he had wound her up quite enough, he moved to part her tightly clenched and shaking thighs, stroking gently there between her folds. Her hips twitched at the teasing touch, her body craving relief from the hot tension pooling like lava in her core. He dipped his head between her thighs, lifted her arse up off the bed enough that he was able to maneuver her legs to rest on his shoulders, and began to give her clit an enthusiastic encore performance of what he had been doing to her nipples just recent moments ago.

Unable to bury her hands in his hair as she might have liked to, she instead clutched at the pillows and sheets around her for purchase, feeling for all the world like she desperately needed something to hold onto or she'd be entirely swept away. When she climaxed a few moments later, it was his name on her lips as she cried out her passion. He rested his head against the bare skin of her thigh, his hair tickling softly against her as she waited, breathless, to see what he would do next. When she caught her breath to look down at him, he was looking up at her as though the world started and ended here between them. Maybe it did. Something imperceptible had changed between them, although she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was exactly that felt different.

After a minute or two of resting his head between her legs, he drew himself back up and moved to straddle her hips, using his open palms against the bed as leverage. Just the head of his cock was brushing against the still sensitive nub of her clit, and she had to suck in her breath and hold it there to avoid letting out another shallow, throaty moan. He hovered there above her, looking down on her again with that tense, piercing gaze that made her feel as if he could see through every last little facade she could possibly put up against him. When he kissed her she tasted herself on his lips, but his mouth and tongue tasted like tears, and she thought of his dead wife and daughter and had to resist the sudden urge to weep openly for him. Instead, she closed her eyes and focused on the way his bare skin felt against her own, how it should almost be too hot but instead felt like they were just two candles being held to the same flame, each constantly keeply the other alight.

He dropped back down so that their chests were pressed tight against each other and moved his arms so that they were resting behind her back and he was slightly embracing her, his hands clasping her shoulders from behind. The arrangement of their bodies like this felt surprisingly intimate, making Alba only more acutely aware of how different this night was from the others. That first night he had fucked her like it was a punishment, and in most ways, it had felt like one. Certainly, her body had looked like it had been abused the day after. That second night they had never made it past the oral portion of the program in her bedroom, but there had been an urgency and ferocity to their movements that was lacking in this encounter. Now, the Doctor seemed to be taking his time with her, lavishing her body with slow, salacious kisses and touches, as though he were making up for what had gone before, apologizing to the tender flesh that he'd bitten and bruised. She wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him onwards and inwards with the motion of her hips. He accepted her body's invitation, holding her tightly against him and kissing her firmly on the lips as he slid inside of her and began to thrust.

She arched her back underneath him, sliding her own arms up and underneath of his to clasp him tightly around the back, her fingernails digging into the scant meat of his shoulders. He moaned appreciatively into her mouth when she did this, so she dug in a little bit harder (okay, maybe a lot) and drew her fingers down his spine. When she felt something damp beneath her fingertips, she wasn't sure if she had drawn blood or if he was just getting sweaty with the exertion of...and what was this they were doing? It felt so incredibly intimate, the sort of the thing you did with a trusted lover and not just a casual shag, but they were hardly either of those things.

Whatever they were, it was so much more complicated than that. She was afraid though that if she tried to put a name to what it was they were doing, that it would all fall apart around her. Instead, she nipped his lower lip, pulling it into her mouth where she continued to nibble on it. If she had drawn blood, he didn't seem to mind either way. She felt his thrusts growing more urgent and she moved her hips to match his pace, gasping and clenching tightly around him when he began to grind against her pelvic bone. He let out a shaky, gasping sigh against the side of her throat, emptying himself into her just as she began to shudder in the throes of her own orgasm.

She expected him to roll off and away from her, as he had last time, so the fact that he stayed there like that, still clasping her tightly in his arms caught her off guard. He was muttering something inaudible against her shoulder, although it sounded a bit like ".._.keep us safe this time_". Finally, he rolled off of her and urged her onto her side, nestling himself up against her and draping an arm protectively over her hip. He was...spooning her?

With a strange knot forming in her stomach, Alba realized she had just made love with her kidnapper...and it had been better than good, it had been bloody amazing.


	12. Forcing the Hand

Long after Alba's breathing had slowed and steadied with the rhythm of sleep, the Doctor laid awake staring at the ceiling, thinking of how foolish he was, even after everything that had happened. Had he learned nothing? After the circus riot of a business meeting in New London, the absolute last thing he should have done was come home and tried to play house with her. It was only going to make their inevitable parting down the line that much harder on him. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat there contemplating for a moment. Quietly, he grabbed his dressing gown off the hook on the wall and crept down the marble steps to the antechamber. With the practiced ease of someone who is accustomed to sneaking about, he slipped out the door, down the stairs, and back into the hallway. She was asleep now, and he knew there was no chance of him finding sleep himself at that point, so instead he went to the library and poured himself a scotch.

When he'd gone to the slave exchange in search of a girl he could make disappear and then make into a temporary wife, he hadn't been looking for anyone extraordinary. In fact, he'd gone in with low expectations of girls who would likely be of only average intelligence, demure, but lacking in personality, broken and lacking in spirit. Imagine his surprise to find Alba, who was funny and feisty, clever and beautiful, and by some unlikely coincidence happened to resemble his dead wife a great deal more than he was comfortable admitting out loud, especially not after Alba had told him outright that she sometimes felt like he was looking right through her at times. He had denied it wholeheartedly, of course, but it had unsettled him to think that perhaps he was a bit more transparent than he realized at times. Why was he so smitten with her, anyway? Was he falling in love with Alba, or falling in love with the memory of his dead wife, whom he'd had ten years to elevate to a status of perfection? When Romana had died, the two of them had barely been on speaking terms, as much as that hurt to admit to himself even now.

The scotch glass was emptied and refilled several times before he thought to fumble his mobile out of his pocket and dial Jack Harkness's number. Jack was better with this stuff, always had been. He seemed to get it, make some of the connections that he himself was unable to at times.

"...hello?" Jack answered, his voice groggy.

"S'me...I'm back from New London. I'm afraid I've got some bad news," he slurred, setting his glass down roughly on the table beside him.

"Evidently. Can't imagine you'd be calling me at half past four in the morning pissed drunk because everything went swimmingly. What the hell even happened?" the other man asked, obviously aggravated at having been disturbed at this hour.

"Better ask what didn't happen. Probably easier to just show you, you won't believe me if I try to explain. Come over," he hiccupped.

"Now? Fuck off of it, I'm in bed with Alonso. And you should be in bed too, you drunk asshole. Wait...where is Rose?" Jack asked, his voice suddenly lucid and clear with concern.

"She's upstairs, asleep. In my bedroom. So no...I really shouldn't go back to bed, Jack, she's why I got out of bed in the first place. I didn't want her to see me like this...again. Come over," he hiccupped again. He heard the sigh and grumble from the other end, but knew that meant he'd probably already gotten his way.

"You let her see the Bat Cave? I've never even seen your bedroom, and we've been friends practically our whole lives!"

"Do you want to see my bedroom?" the Doctor asked, amused.

"Well, yeah, it's a secret lair. Can I?"

"No. Now come over."

"Alright, alright, just keep your shorts on, I'll be over as soon as I can. And leave Rose alone...she's had enough of your drunken antics to last a life already, I think."

"I won't bother Rose, I promise," he said solemnly

"I realize this second request might be futile, but please stop drinking. I don't want to go over there and just find that you drank yourself into a puddle of vomit of the floor, with absolutely no recollection of having disturbed me at an ungodly hour of the morning to come soothe your over inflated and damaged ego."

"Gee thanks Harkness, you're a true friend," he said sarcastically, but Jack didn't take the bait.

"I know. See you in thirty. Just stay put, you lush. But seriously...stop drinking!"

Jack looked the legal document in front of him over and over again, but a second and third reading still didn't help him believe what he was seeing there. Now, he understood why the Doctor was so despondent. All his carefully laid plans to protect the company from the megalomaniacal interests of his half-brother Harry and his crazed bitch of a sister-in-law Rani were for naught.

"I just can't believe they actually...I mean, shit! They're terrible people, they don't even like animals, let alone other people. This has got to be some kind of a joke, or a stunt," Jack exclaimed, rattling the papers in his hands frustratedly.

"Oh, I'm sure it is a stunt," the Doctor replied wearily. "But stunt or not, it's legally ironclad. My father's will was very specific about the conditions under which the company would change hands in the event that he became incapable of running it, and he was always very specific that he never wanted it to leave the family. When he wrote it, I'm sure he didn't realize I'd be the one who'd end up getting screwed by the legacy clause. I'm sure he never in his wildest dreams could have imagined that Harry and Rani would actually...yeah. It actually makes me physically ill talking about it, so I'm not going to. When my father made that will, he didn't even know about Harry, Romana was still alive, and Susanna hadn't even been born. He had no idea he had a bastard son...literally. He had no idea what would happen to any of us. He wrote the will before he became too senile to do so...it is what it is."

"Yeah, but...man, what the fuck? I'm just so livid on your behalf, and I'm disgusted that they could be so heartless and manipulative. And they're the older, more wise and responsible ones supposedly. Can't you try to fight fire with fire?" Jack asked him, still simmering with anger.

The Doctor laughed, bitterly. "How? I'm already the monster who took a girl from her mother...I won't be the monster that does that, too. The whole thing is a mess anyway...maybe it's just better if I sit back and let the pieces fall as they may."

"You can't honestly believe that. You know what Harry would do if he had control of the company. He _will_ push through to get a license to produce the vortex manipulator commercially, because it's profitable. He doesn't care if some kid accidentally makes dinosaurs extinct or not, so long as he can make a buck while he does it. Never mind if he got his hands on those formulas you've been working on lately, which you've been using the work lab for… You can't give up now, there has to be another way."

"Don't you get it, Jack? There isn't another way. Well, maybe there is, but it doesn't matter because Harry is evil, and he's always one step ahead of the game. Don't ask me how, but he knew Rose came from one of the slave exchanges in New London. He confronted me about it over a week ago, after him and Rani came over for dinner that night. I denied it, of course, but I doubt he believed me. I don't know how he found out. The point is...they're on to me. And they're doing this because they know I won't try to compete with them. That part of my life is over, it ended a long time ago. I was willing to go through with a sham marriage to try and save my father's company...but I won't ask Rose to do this and I won't play at their game."

"How do you know Rose wouldn't do it? She grew up on a council estate, and she loves her mother to death. If she thought doing it would mean securing a better future for her and her mother, she probably would. Money talks, especially to those who've never had it before."

"Okay Jack, I'll bite. Pretend for a second I ask, and she does agree. What happens when it's time for her to go back to her own time, her own life? What the hell would I do then?" he asked, angrily.

"I've only just started to get to know her, but my gut feeling says that she wouldn't leave, she'd stay. Wouldn't that be a good thing?" Jack prodded gently.

"No, because there'd be outside factors forcing her hand. If she's going to stay, I want her to stay because it's a choice she made for herself, not one she made out of a sense of duty or obligation, and not one she made because she had financial motivation to do so," the Doctor grumbled.

Jack looked utterly gobsmacked. "You're falling for her, aren't you?"

"I'm not falling for her. I don't even know her, Jack. The only thing I do know is that she's too good for me, and she's somehow mine anyway. For now. I have some kind of responsibility not to completely sully her..."

"Oh my God, you are! You are totally falling for Rose! That was not part of the original plan…"

"Of course it wasn't part of the plan!" the Doctor snapped, pouring himself another inch of scotch. "But it's like..fuck, Jack. It's like the universe hand-delivered her to me. And she reminds me so much of my Romana in some ways, the good ways...it feels like I'm being given a second chance here."

"I know you aren't supposed to speak ill of the dead...but Romana and you weren't even talking when she died. If it wasn't for the accident...you probably would've ended up getting divorced, she would have asked you for one. It's been so long, you've built her up in your mind to be something she never was. Doctor...you were friends, teenagers, who accidentally got pregnant when you were still practically kids. You never should've gotten married, and the only reason you did was because your family's are both old-fashioned. Maybe you guys were best friends once upon a time, but you just weren't cut out for each other in love. Having a kid is hard on any marriage, let alone with you guys being so young and you already off working full time while she stayed home with the baby. What happened wasn't your fault. If you're going to give yourself a second chance, just give yourself permission to forgive yourself for Romana and Susanna, and actually really love the person this time."

"I loved my wife and daughter," the Doctor repeated, his voice steely, and Jack got the feeling he was saying it out loud more for his own benefit than anyone else's.

"I never said you didn't, but Doctor...things were going down hill. There's no point pining over what could've been in the past when you've got the future right in front of you to worry about. If you don't want Harry taking over the company, selling off _your_ inventions, _your_ formulas, and _your_ father's legacy, than we've got to come up with some kind of plan. You should at least talk to Rose about it, see what she says. She's practical enough. If you frame it for her logically why it makes sense to do it, she might even agree."

"If Sus-if my daughter had lived...she would only be seven years younger than Rose," the Doctor said, a trace of revulsion and self-loathing hidden in his expression.

"That's not the point, and you know it. You could sit here and self-deprecate all night, but I won't let you. You paid the price for having Rose, you might as well attempt talking to her. I know she's a just for show wife, but maybe talking to her like a real wife would help."

"I'm not involving Rose," the Doctor said. "And that's final. I'll come up with some other solution. I always do."

Jack hoped the Doctor was right.

Jack didn't leave until the first rays of the dawn's early morning light were creeping over the horizon, and he was satisfied that the Doctor was soberish enough to return to bed without disturbing Rose. It felt a bit absurd, standing outside a closet door like it was the wardrobe that lead to Narnia, and bidding his best friend good night (good morning?)

"All I'm saying Doc, just think about trying to talk with her," Jack coaxed.

"Yes, I heard you the first two dozen times you suggested that. I get the point, now drop it. If I want to talk to Rose about it, I will. In my own time," the Doctor replied, pursing his lips.

"So never, in other words," Jack said with a sarcastic laugh. "For having that enormous, scientific brain all in there, you sure are a moron sometimes when it comes to figuring out other people."

"Get out of my house, you walking chlamydia culture," the Doctor replied with no malice in his voice.

"Love you too, Doc," Jack said, blowing an air kiss at him as he went. The Doctor ducked to the side, as if avoiding said air kiss and made an obscene gesture at Jack in response. Pushing through the coats to the code box, he wished again for perhaps the millionth time that Jack Harkness were his half-brother, instead of the smug, smarmy, arrogant prick Harry Saxon. He wished a lot of things were different, though. If he could rebuild the world all over again, what would it even look like? He didn't know, but he wondered to himself if that wasn't in fact what he was already trying to do.

Quietly, he crept back into bed with Rose (as even he was coming to think of her this way in private), draped his arms around her, and tried to will himself to find sleep, and to some relief from the restless stream of guilty, chattering voices that always seemed to inhabit his head at night. Eventually, his eyelids became too heavy to hold open, and he dropped off into an uneasy sleep, plagued with nightmares and dreams of the voices that haunted his head.


End file.
